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ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON. 






THE PRINCESS 

BY 

Alfred, Lord Tennyson 



EDITED WITH 

Introduction and Notes for the use of Academies and 
High Schools 






\ BV 



H.^T. NIGHTINGALE 



Instructor in English and History, South Division High School 
Chicago. 



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Chicago 

AINSWORTH & COMPANY 

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Copyright, 1S9S, 

BY 

AINSWORTH & COMPANY. 



2 



INTRODUCTION 



"TENNYSON is the most faultless of modern poets in technical 
execution, but one whose verse is more remarkable for artistic perfection 
than for dramatic action and inspired fervor. His adroitness surpasses 
his invention." — Stedman. 

ALFRED TENNYSON, the son of an Anglican clergyman, 
was born August 6, 1809, in the village of Somersb}^ in 
Lincolnshire, England. He was educated at Trinity 
College, Cambridge, and resided for many years at Aldworth, 
in Sussex, with a summer residence on the Isle of Wight. 

He began to write verse almost as soon as he could write 
anything, and in his twelfth year wrote an epic of five thousand 
lines in imitation of Scott. Shortl}^ after, his school-boy days 
were concluded and his education continued under his father's 
tuition. In 1828, he went up to Trinity College, Cambridge, 
where his lack of public-school training became apparent in a 
painful shyness. Before the year was gone, however, he had 
found congenial friends although he never ceased to prefer soli- 
tude to the society of strangers. His most important intimate 
at college was Arthur Henry Hallam, who became his closest 
friend and was afterward engaged to his sister Emily. 

Tennyson's first recognition came in a prize poem called 
Timbuctoo, issued in 1829, w^hich gained the Chancellor's 
Medal at the Cambridge Commencement. In 1831, his father 

5 



6 INTRODUCTION. 

died, and he left college without taking his degree. Two j-ears 
after, in 1833, occurred the death of Hallam which brought the 
deepest trouble into Tennyson's life, resulting in a spiritual 
battle with grief and doubt which, nearly twenty years after- 
ward, found its fit expression in the poem "In Memoriam." 
In this Tennyson seeks to bring life and immortality to light. 

In 1837 the home at Somersby was broken up, and there- 
after, although from time to time he was with his mother, he 
lived mostly in London lodgings. Here he had the companion- 
ship of some of the strongest men of the time — Mill, Landor, 
Thackeray and Carlyle — and the latter gives this description of 
him: "A great shock of rough, dusty-dark hair; bright, 
laughing, hazel eyes; massive, aquiline face, most massive, yet 
most delicate ; of sallow, brown complexion, almost Indian- 
looking; clothes, cynically loose, free and easy; smokes infinite 
tobacco." 

In 1842, poems by Alfred Tennyson were published in two 
volumes ; the first being in great part a reprint of previously 
published verse. 

Nothing of note was issued in the next few years. Then 
in 1845, came a grant from Sir Robert Peel, the Premier, of a 
royal pension of two hundred pounds per year. 

The Princess was issued in 1847. 

In 1850, upon the death of Wordsworth, he was appointed 
Laureate and thereafter was looked upon as the greatest of 
living English poets. This year also notes the beginning of an 
exceptionally happy married life. 

In 1855, Oxford conferred on him the degree of D. C. L. 



INTRODUCTION. 7 

In 1859 was issued his masterpiece, the " Idyls of the King," 
to which he had given the labor of twenty years. This is a 
rendering of the Arthurian legends into exquisitely musical 
verse. In this epic Tennyson has caught the medieval spirit ; 
no other poet has written so beautifully of the much-maligned 
middle ages. In 1875, Tennyson appeared in a new role, that 
of dramatic poet, but ' ' Queen Mary , ' ' was received with respect- 
ful and general dissatisfaction, a fate that " Harold " shared in 
1877. "Becket," with which a theatre was opened in New 
York by the Irving Company, was only an accidental success, 
and the ablest critics deem it a reading, not an acting play. 

We quote below a striking paragraph from a recent portrait- 
ure of his character : 

" Tennyson is essentially a lyric poet, a graceful writer, a singer of 
many sweet melodies ; but the beauty there is rather that of the cold mo- 
saic than of ' the human face divine,' or if it is the beauty of the human 
countenance, a peaceful or happy soul does not beam through it. In his 
verse we seem ever to hear a sigh after something that is hopeless, ever 
a wail for sad days gone by — often most beautifully uttered, yet only a 
regretful wail with very little of a brightening glimmer of joy to look 
forward to in life or after it. Sadness is an element of poetry, grief and 
sorrow go home to the heart of every human being, but not the sadness 
of despair, not the gloom of endless death. True human sorrow has in 
it a gleam ©f hope, but ' Tennyson's Calvary has no Easter.' " 

We suggest to those who read his poetry with an earnest 
degree of analysis, who look into its depths, to decide for them- 
selves, whether they thus read the late poet laureate. 

In middle life Tennyson had refused a baronetcy, but in 
1884, he 5'ielded to the general desire, and was created a Peer, 



8 INTRODUCTION. 

with the title, " Baron Tennyson of Aldworth and Farringford," 
so that thereafter he bore the title of I^ord Tennyson. Tenny- 
son was a man of refined tastes, wide culture, profound thought 
and studious habits ; the beauty and purity of his works are 
but reflections of the character of the man. His last years were 
passed in the serene quiet of Aldworth, and there, on October 
6, 1892, shortly before the publication of his last volume, he 
died as calnil)^ as he had liv^ed. The close of his life was in 
keeping with the thoughts expressed in his last poem, entitled : 

CROSSING THE BAR. 

***** 
Twilight and evening bell, 

And after that the dark ! 
And may there be no sadness of farewell 
When I embark ! 

For though from out our bourne of Time and Place 

The iiood may bear me far, 
I hope to see m}' Pilot face to face 

When I have crossed the bar. 



THE POEM 



DRIEFLY stated the story of the Poem is of a Prince, betrothed in 
childhood, to a daughter of a neighboring king. The Princess, 
having established a Woman's College on a superb foundation and 
achieving a great success, has other views for her own life and declines 
to fulfil the early betrothal. The Prince, with two companions in 
woman's guise, seeks admission to the College where "No Man May 
Enter In on Pain of Death." They were received and registered 
as students. They are soon recognized however, through their disguise, 
but the promise of secrecy is given by their discoverer. Others from one 
cause and another become aware of the facts but the secret is not gener- 



INTRODUCTION. . 9 

ally known until the Prince himself, angered at the indiscreet music of 
one of his companions, betrays himself and trouble ensues. In the midst 
of the general confusion the Princess seeks flight, but "blind with rage 
she missed the plank and roll'd in the river." Good fortune and 
manly courage come to the aid of the Prince, and "woman-vested " as he 
was he plunged in, rescued the drowning Princess and gained the shore. 
Notwithstanding he had saved her life and she owed him "bitter thanks " 
he pleads in vain. Her orders were "push them out at gates" and out 
they go and enter into the camp of the army sent by the father of the 
Prince to besiege her palace. 

Her brothers had raised an army also and come to the defense of the 
Princess. 

It was decided, after medieval custom, to settle the trouble by a 
tourney between the brothers and fifty companions on the one side and 
the Prince and a like number on the other side. In the tournament the 
Prince suffers a disastrous defeat and a dangerous woilnd. The Princess 
dismisses the students, admits the wounded of both sides and is herself in 
turn finally conquered by her love for the Prince which results in their 
marriage and the end of the tale. 



pOR a proper appreciation of the Poem, it should be under- 
stood that present conditions are utterly at variance with 
the spirit prevalent at the time when The Princess was first 
issued. Our consideration must be based upon the poem as it 
is now, with all the additions and changes which criticism and 
improvements have brought to it which render it more pleasing 
to us than to its first readers. 

Fifty years ago, when the Poem was first written, the 
"Woman's Rights" agitation was scarcely begun, it was very 
unpopular and the women who favored it were considered of an 
objectionable masculine type. The doctrine of the higher 
education of women became unfortunately intimately associated 
with the same agitation and neither could be conceived as a fit 
subject for an epic b}- a man whose earlier work warranted the 
appearance of a great production of an heroic style. The 



lo INTRODUCTION. 

establishment of Colleges for women, the general adoption of 
co-education by our schools and universities and the general 
advancement of women in all lines of human industry serve to 
destroy the anachronism of the poem so far as the original 
ideals of The Princess are concerned. 

The central thought of the poem is the Divinity of love as 
opposed to the untenable theories about Women's Sphere. It 
portrays the conflict between the power of knowledge and the 
power of love, and shows how inter-dependent and inter-helpful 
they are in bringing about that full fruition of human happi- 
ness, which the nature of both man and woman craves and is 
intended to secure. 

A first reading of the poem often results in dissatisfaction : 
its verse is a combination of the epic, the idyllic and the lyric : 
many passages are of perfect beauty so that in this respect it 
has been called the most exquisite poem in the language ; and 
3^et there is an unevenness of quality which obscures its unity 
and which is caused, perhaps, by the over-elaborateness of 
detail. The effort to luiite the burlesque and the serious results 
frequently in a style almost fantastic. A late writer says .... 
" Is a romance designed to indicate the poet's conception of 
the true sphere of woman and her function in society." 

Mr. Dawson says "The babe in the poem, as in the songs, 
is made the central point upon which the plot turns ; for the 
unconscious child is the concrete embodiment of Nature herself 
clearing away all merely intellectual theories by her silent 
influence." 

Mr. Stedman says "other works of our poet are greater, 
but none is so fascinating as this romantic tale: English 
throughout, yet combining the England of Coeur de Ivion with 
that of Victoria in one bewitching picture." 

While The Princess may not be considered as one of the 



INTRODUCTION. ir 

chief works of our literature it is a story that can be read with 
interest, and studied with pleasure. 

It is not an easy poem to read, and therefore should be 
reserved for the last years of our secondary schools. A too 
severe critical analysis should not be attempted, but every 
effort put forth to reveal to the pupil the charms and beauties 
of style, the landscape pictures, the eloquent lines, so that he 
will become interested not so much in the subject matter of the 
poem, as in its literary merit, for the end of the study of 
English in our secondarj^ schools is the inculcation of a taste 
for all that is purest, grandest, best in our richly-laden 
literature. 



DATE OF ISSUE OF FIRST EDITIONS. 

1827. Poems by Two Brothers. 

1829. Timbuctoo. Printed in " Prolusiones Academicae. " 

1830. Poems, chiefly Lyrical. 
1832. Poems by Alfred Tennyson. 

1842. Poems by Alfred Tennyson, in two volumes. 

1847. THE PRINCESS : A MEDLEY. 

1850. In Memoriam. 

1852. Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington. 

1855. Maud, and other Poems. 

1859. Idyls of the King. 

1864. Enoch Arden, etc. 

1865. A Selection from the Works of Alfred Tennyson. 
1869. The Holy Grail, and other Poems. 

1S70. The Window, or the Song of the Wrens. 

1872. Gareth and Lynett, etc. 

iSyS- Queen Mary : A Drama. 

1876. Harold : A Drama. 

1879. The Lover's Tale. 

1884. The Cup and The Falcon. 
Becket. 

1885. Tiresias, and other Poems. 

1886. Locksley Hall Sixty Years After, etc. 
1889. Demeter, and other Poems. 

1892. The Foresters : Robin Hood and Maid Marian. 

The Death of ^none, Akbar's Dream, and other Poems. 



T^HE text used in this volume is the same as used in the fifth edition 
published in 1853, and no references are made to any changes or 
dates of additional passages. 

The poem being intended for study as an example of literary style, it 
has seemed best to omit unnecessary detail, and as few notes as possible 
have been inserted. 



ABBREVIATIONS AND REFERENCES. 



Cf. (confer), compare. 

CI. Diet., Author's Smith's "Classical Dictionary." 

Dawson, Dawson's " Study of the Princess," (Montreal, 1884). 

F. Q., Spenser's " Faerie Queene." 

Fol., following. 

Imp. Diet., Ogilvie's "Imperial Dictionary," (Century Co., 18S3). 

In Mem., Tennyson's "In Memoriam." 

P. ly., Milton's " Paradise lyost.'" 

P. R., " " Paradise Regained." 

Prol., Prologue. 

Rd. Hd., Brewer's " Readers' Handbook." 

Wb., Webster's Dictionarj', (revised, 1879). 



THE PRINCESS 



CIR WALTER VIVIAN all a 

"^ summer's day 

Gave his broad lawns until the set 

of sun 
Up to the people: thither flock'd 

at noon 
His tenants, wife and child, and 

thither half 
The neighboring borough with 

their Institute^ 
Of which he was the patron. I 

was there 
From college, visiting the son, — 

the son 
A Walter too, — with others of our 

set, 
Five others: we were seven at 

Vivian-place. 

And me that morning Walter 
show'd the house, 

Greek, set with busts: from vases 
in the hall 

Flowers of all heavens, and love- 
lier than their names, - 

' A " Mechanic's Institute, ' partly edu- 
cational, partly social. 

2 Botanical names, which are often 
meaningless, except to botanists. 



Grew side by side; and on the 
pavement lay 

Carved stones of the Abbey-ruin 
in the park. 

Huge Ammonites, 3 and the first 
bones of Time; 

And on the tables every clime and 
age 

Jumbled together; celts and calu- 
mets. 

Claymore and snow-shoe, toys in 
lava, fans 

Of sandal, amber, ancient rosa- 
ries. 

Laborious orient ivory sphere in 20 
sphere. 

The cursed Malayan crease,* and 
battle-clubs 

From the isles of palm: and 
higher on the walls, 

Betwixt the monstrous horns of 
elk and deer. 

His own forefathers' arms and 
armor hung. 

And 'this,' he said, 'was Hugh's 
at Agincourt; 

• lyarge fossils of cuttle-fish. 

♦ Also written creese or kris. 



14 



THE PRINCESS. 



And that was old Sir Ralph's at 

Ascalon: 
A good knight he! we keep a 

chronicle 
With all about him,' — which he 

brought, and I 
Dived in a hoard of tales that 

dealt with knights 
30 Half-legend, half-historic, counts 

and kings 
Who laid about them at their wills 

and died: 
And niixt with these a lady, one 

that arm'd 
Her own fair head, and sallying 

thro' the gate, 
Had beat her foes with slaughter 

from her walls. 

'O miracle of women,' said the 

book, 
'O noble heart who, being strait- 
besieged 
By this wild king to force her to 

his wish. 
Nor bent, nor broke, ^ nor shunn'd 

a soldier's death. 
But now when all was lost or 

seem'd as lost — 
40 Her stature more than mortal in 

the burst 
Of sunrise, her arm lifted, eyes on 

fire — 
Brake with a blast of trumpets 

from the gate. 
And, falling on them like a thun- 
derbolt. 
She trampled some beneath her 

horses' heels. 
And some were whelm'd with 

missiles of the wall. 
And some were push'd with lances 

from the rock. 
And part were drown'd within the 

whirling brook: 

eCf. line 38, Tennyson often uses the 
alternate form brake. 



O miracle of noble womanhood!' 

So sang the gallant glorious 
chronicle; 

And, I all rapt in this, 'Come out,' 5° 
he said, 

'To the Abbey: there is Aunt 
Elizabeth 

And sister Lilia with the rest.' 
We went 

(I kept the book and had my fin- 
ger in it) 

Down thro' the park: strange 
was the sight to me; 

For all the sloping pasture mur- 
mur'd, sown 

With happy faces and with holi- 
day. 

There moved the multitude, a 
thousand heads: 

The patient leaders of their Insti- 
tute 

Taught them with facts. One 
rear'd a font of stone 

And drew, from butts of water on 60 
the slope, 

The fountain of the moment, 
playing, now 

A twisted snake, and now a rain 
of pearls, 

Or steep-up*' spout whereon the 
gilded ball 

Danced like a wisp: and some- 
what lower down 

A man with knobs and wires and 
v-ials fired 

A cannon; Echo answer'd in her 
sleep 

From hollow fields: and here 
were telescopes 

For azure views; and there a 
group of girls 

In circle waited, whom the electric 
shock 

Dislink'd with shrieks and laugh- 70 
ter: round the lake 

• Ascending steeply. 



PROLOGUE, 



15 



A little clock-work steamer pad- 
dling plied 
And shook the lilies: perch'd 

about the knolls 
A dozen angry models jetted 

steam: 
A petty railway ran: a fire-bal- 
loon 
Rose gem-like up before the 

dusky groves 
And dropt a fairy parachute and 

past: 
And there thro' twenty posts of 

telegraph 
They flash'd a saucy message to 

and fro 
Between the mimic stations; so 

that sport 
80 Went hand in hand with science; 

otherwhere 
Pure sport: a herd of boys with 

clamor bowl'd 
And stump'd the wicket; babies 

roll'd about 
Like tumbled fruit in grass; and 

men and maids 
Arranged a country dance, and 

flew thro' light 
And shadow, while the twangling 

violin 
Struck up with Soldier-laddie, and 

overhead 
The broad ambrosial aisles of lofty 

lime 
Made noise with bees and breeze 

from end to end. 

Strange was the sight and 
smacking of the time; 
90 And long we gazed, but satiated 
at length 
Came to the ruins. High-arch'd 

and ivy-claspt. 
Of finest Gothic lighter'^ than a 
fire, 

'The Gothic architecture in use in the 
thirteenth and fourteenth centuries con- 



Thro' one wide chasm of time and 

frost they gave 
The park, the crowd, the house; 

but all within 
The sward was trim as any garden 

lawn: 
And here we lit on Aunt Eliza- 
beth, 
And Lilia with the rest, and lady 

friends 
From neighbor® seats; and there 

was Ralph himself, 
A broken statue propt against 100 

the wall, 
As gay as any. Lilia, wild with 

sport. 
Half child, half woman as she 

was, had wound 
A scarf of orange round the stony 

helm, 
And robed the shoulders in a rosy 

silk. 
That made the old warrior from 

his ivied nook 
Glow like a sunbeam: near his 

tomb a feast 
Shone, silver-set; about it lay the 

guests. 
And there we join'd them: then 

the maiden Aunt 
Took this fair day for text, and 

from it preach'd 
An universal culture for the no 

crowd. 
And all things great; but we, un- 

worthier, told 
Of college: he had climb'd across 

the spikes, 
And he'' had squeezed himself 

betwixt the bars. 
And he^ had breathed the Proc- 

tor's^o dogs; and one 
trasted with the massive architecture of 
the mansion from which they had come. 

8 Neighboring country residences. 

» Means one another. 

'"A college oflScer whose assistants 
kept order. 



i6 



THE PRINCESS. 



Discuss'd his tutor, rough to 
common men, 

But honeying at the whisper of a 
lord; 

And one the Master, as a rogue 
in grain 

Veneer'd with sanctimonious the- 
ory. 

But while they talk'd, above 

their heads I saw 
The feudal warrior lady-clad; 

which brought 
120 My book to mind: and opening 

this I read 
Of old Sir Ralph a page or two 

that rang 
With tilt and tourney; then the 

tale of her 
That drove her foes with slaughter 

from her walls, 
And much I praised her noble- 
ness, and 'Where,' 
Ask'd Walter, patting Lilia's head 

(she lay 
Beside him) 'lives there such a 

woman now?' 

Quick answer'd Lilia, 'There 

are thousands now 
Such women, but conventional 

beats them down: 
It is but bringing up; no more 

than that: 
130 You men have done it: how I 

hate you all! 
Ah, were I something great! I 

wish I were 
Some mighty poetess, I would 

shame you then. 
That love to keep us children! 

I wish 

That I were some great princess, 

1 would build 

'1 Means conventionality; see Part Two, 
line 72, also Imp. Diet. 



Far of? from men a college like a 

man's. 
And I would teach them all that 

men are taught; 
We are twice as quick!' And 

here she shook aside 
The hand that play'd the patron 

with her curls. 



And one said smiling, 'Pretty 
were the sight 

If our old halls could change 140 
their sex, and flaunt 

With prudes for proctors, dow- 
agers for deans. 

And sweet girl-graduates in their 
golden hair. 

I think they should not wear our 
rusty gowns. 

But move as rich as Emperor- 
moths, or Ralph 

Who shines so in the corner; yet 
I fear. 

If there were many Lilias in the 
brood. 

However deep you might embow- 
er the nest, 

Some boy would spy it.' 

At this upon the sward 

She tapt her tiny silken-sandall'd 
foot: 

'That's your light way; but I 150 
would make it death 

For any male thing but to peep 
at us.' 



Petulant she spoke, and at her- 
self she laugh'd; 

A rosebud set with little wilful 
thorns. 

And sweet as English air could 
make her, she: 

But Walter hail'd a score of names 
upon her, 

And 'petty Ogress,' and 'ungrate- 
ful Puss,' 



PROLOGUE. 



17 



And swore he long'd at college, 
only long'd. 

All else was well, for she-society. 

They boated and they cricketed; 
they talk'd 
i6o At wine, in clubs, of art, of poli- 
tics; 

They lost^- their weeks; they vext 
the souls of deans; 

They rode; they betted; made a 
. hundred friends. 

And caught the blossom of the 
flying terms, 

But miss'd the mignonette of Viv- 
ian-place, 

The little hearth-flower -Lilia. 
Thus he spoke. 

Part banter, part affection. 

'True,' she said, 

'We doubt not that. O yes, you 
miss'd us much. 

I'll stake my ruby ring upon it 
you did.' 

She held it out; and as a parrot 

turns 
t7o Up thro' gilt wires a crafty loving 

eye, 
And takes a lady's finger with all 

care, 
And bites it for true heart and not 

for harm. 
So he with Lilia's. Daintily she 

shriek'd 
And wrung it. 'Doubt my word 

again!' he said. 
'Come, listen! here is proof that 

you were miss'd: 
We seven stay'd at Christmas up^^ 

to read; 

'2 To gain batchelor's degree at Cam- 
bridge, candidates were obliged to pass 
nine terms in actual residence, and to be 
present about two-thirds of the entire 
number of weeks. 

1 3 An expression used by university stu- 
dents as we use "to study." 



And there we took one tutor as 

to read: 
The hard-grain'd Muses of the 

cube and square 
Were out of season: never man. 

I think. 
So moulder'd in a sinecure as he: 180 
For while our cloisters echo'd 

frosty feet, 
And our long walks^* were stript 

as bare as brooms. 
We did but talk you over, pledge 

you all 
In wassail; often, like as many 

girls— 
.Sick for the hollies and the yews 

of home — 
As many little trifling Lilias — 

play'd 
Charades and riddles as at Christ- 
mas here, 
And what's my thought and when 

and where and how. 
And often told a tale from mouth 

to mouth 
As here at Christmas.' 

She remember'd that: ^^ 
A pleasant game, she thought: 

she liked it more 
Than magic music, forfeits, all the 

rest. 
But these — what kind of tales did 

men tell men. 
She wonder'd, by themselves? 

A half-disdain 
Perch'd on the pouted blossom of 

her lips; 
And Walter nodded at me: 'He 

began. 
The rest would follow, each in 

turn; and so 
We forged a sevenfold story. 

Kind? what kind? 
Chimeras, crotchets, Christmas 

solecisms, 

'1 Avenues of trees. 



i8 



THE PRINCESS. 



200 Seven-headed monsters only made 
to kill 

Time by the fire in winter.' 

"Kill him now, 

The tyrant! kill him in the sum- 
mer too,' 

Said Lilia; 'Why not now?' the 
maiden Aunt. 

"Why not a summer's as a win- 
ter's tale? 

A tale for summer as befits the 
time, 

And something it should be to 
suit the place, 

Heroic, for a hero lies beneath, 

Grave, solemn!' 

Walter warp'd his mouth at this 

To something so mock-solemn, 
that I laugh'd 
2,0 And Lilia woke with sudden- 
shrilling mirth 

An echo like a ghostly wood- 
pecker. 

Hid in the ruins; till the maiden 
Aunt 

(A little sense of wrong had 
touch'd her face 

With color) turn'd to me with 
'As you will; 

Heroic if you will, or what you 
will. 

Or be yourself your hero if you 
will.' 

'Take Lilia, then, for heroine,' 
clamor'd he, 

'And make her some great Prin- 
cess, six feet high. 

Grand, epic, homicidal ;i5 and be 
you 

The Prince to win her!' 

I'See lines 127-137. 



'Then follow me, the Prince,' 
I answer'd, 'each be hero in his 220^ 

turn! 
Seven and yet one, like shadows 

in a dream. — 
Heroic seems our Princess as re- 
quired — 
But something made to suit with 

time and place, ' 

A Gothic ruin and a Grecian 

house, 
A talk of college and of ladies' 

rights, 
A feudal knight in silken mas- 
querade, 
And, yonder, shrieks and strange 

experiments 
For which the good Sir Ralph 

had burnt them all — 
This were a medley! we should 250 

have him^^ back 
Who told the "Winter's Tale" to 

do it for us. 
No matter: we will say whatever 

comes. 
And let the ladies sing us, if they 

will, 
From time to time, some ballad 

or a song 
To give us breathing-space.' 

So I began, 
And the rest follow'd; and the 

women sang 
Between the rougher voices of the 

men, 
Like linnets in the pauses of the 

wind: 
And here I give the story and the 

songs. 

'•Refers to Shakespeare. 



■€:o-cp3vi?!..Jj;5=-» «"S=5^«i3=vvr*<Sr<3:^c 



PART I. 



^T5;ih22:;''S=wC5!^ OC^<?5=£3^^ 



A PRINCE I was, blue-eyed, 
■'»■ and fair in face, 

Of temper amorous, as the first of 

.May, 
With lengths of yellow ringlet, 

like a girl, 
For on my cradle shone the 

Northern star. 

There lived an ancient legend 

in our house. 
Some sorcerer, whom a far-off 

grandsire burnt 
Because he cast no^ shadow, had 

foretold, 
Dying, that none of all our blood 

should know 
The shadow from the substance, 

and that one 
10 Should come to fight with shad- 
ows and to fall: 
For so, my mother said, the story 

ran. 
And, truly, waking dreams were, 

more or less. 
An old and strange affection of 

the house. 
Myself too had weird seizures. 

Heaven knows what: 
On a sudden in the midst of men 

and day. 
And while I walk'd and talk'd as 

heretofore, 
I seem'd to move among a world 

of ghosts, 

1 The thought of being deprived of 
one's shadow was quite common in 
medieval times. 



And feel myself the shadow of a 
dream. 

Our great court-Galen- poised 
his gilt-head cane. 

And paw'd his beard, and mut- 20 
ter'd 'catalepsy.' 

My mother pitying made a thou- 
sand prayers; 

My mother was as mild as any 
saint. 

Half-canonized by all that look'd 
on her. 

So gracious was her tact and ten- 
derness: 

But my good father thought a 
king a king; 

He cared not for the affection of 
the house; 

He held his sceptre like a ped- 
ant's wand 

To lash ofTence, and with long 
arms and hands 

Reach'd out, and pick'd offenders 
from the mass 

For judgment. 
Now it chanced that I had been, 30 

While life was yet in bud and 
blade, betroth'd 

To one, a neighboring Princess: 
she to me 

Was proxy-wedded^ with a boot- 
less calf 

At eight years old; and still from 
time to time 

Came murmurs of her beauty 
from the South, 

2 An eminent physician, and for cen- 
turies the chief medical authority. 
9 A betrothal. 



20 



THE PRINCESS. 



And of her brethren, youths of 

puissance; 
And still I wore her picture by 

my heart, 
And one dark tress; and all 

around them both 
Sweet thoughts would swarm as 

bees about their queen. 

40 But when the days drew nigh 

that I should wed, 
My father sent ambassadors with 

furs 
And jewels, gifts, to fetch her: 

these brought back 
A present, a great labor of the 

loom; 
And therewithal an answer vague 

as wind: 
Besides, they saw the king; he 

took the gifts; 
He said there was a compact; that 

was true: 
But then she had a will; was he 

to blame? 
And maiden fancies; loved to live 

alone 
Among her women; certain, 

would not wed. 

50 That morning in the presence 

room I stood 
With Cyril and with Florian, my 

two friends: 
The first, a gentleman of broken 

means 
(His father's fault) but given to 

starts and bursts 
Of revel; and the last, my other 

heart. 
And almost my half-self, for still 

we moved 
Together, twinn'd as horse's ear 

and eye. 

Now, while they spake, I saw 
my father's face 



Grow long and troubled like a 

rising moon. 
Inflamed with wrath: he started 

on his feet, 
Tore the king's letter, snow'd it 60 

down, and rent 
The wonder of the loom thro' 

warp and woof 
From skirt to skirt; and at the » 

last he sware 
That he would send a hundred 

thousand men. 
And bring her in a whirlwind: 

then he chew'd 
The thrice-turn'd cud of wrath. 

and cook'd^ his spleen. 
Communing with his captains of 

the war. 

At last I spoke: 'My father. 

let me go. 
It cannot be but some gross error 

lies 
In this report, this answer of a 

king. 
Whom all men rate as kind and 70 

hospitable; 
Or, maybe, I myself, my bride 

once seen, 
Whate'er my grief to find her less 

than fame, 
May rue the bargain made.' And 

Florian said: 
'I have a sister at the foreign 

court, 
Who moves about the Princess; 

she, you know, 
Who wedded with a nobleman 

from thence: 
He. dying lately, left her, as I 

hear, ^ 

The lady of three castles in that ^- 

land: 

" Increased his wrath; refers to the old 
belief that the spleen was the source of 
anger. 



PART I. 



21 



Thro' her this matter might be 

sifted clean.' 
So And Cyril whisper'd: 'Take me 

with you too. 
Then laughing, 'What, if these 

weird seizures come 
Upon you in those lands, and no 

one near 
To point you out the shadow from 

the truth! 
Take me: I'll serve you better in 

a strait; 
I grate on rusty hinges here:' but 

•No!' 
Roar'd the rough king, 'you shall 

not; we ourself 
Will crush her pretty maiden fan- 
cies dead 
In iron gauntlets: break the coim- 

cil up.' 
But when the council broke, I 

rose and past 
90 Thro' the wild woods that hung 

about the town; 
Found a still place, and pluck'd 

her likeness out; 
Laid it on flowers, and watch'd it 

lying bathed 
In the green gleam of dewy-tas- 

sell'd trees: 
What were those fancies? where- 
fore break her troth? 
Proud look'd the lips: but while 

I meditated 
A wind^ arose and rush'd upon 

the South, 
And shook the songs, the whis- 
pers, and the shrieks 
^ Of the wild woods together; and 
► ' a Voice 

Went with it, 'Follow, follow, 

thou shalt win.' 

5 Wallace compares Shelley Prom- 
etheus Unbound II, i. 



Then, ere the silver sickle^ of 100 

that month 
Became her golden shield, I stole 

from court 
With Cyril and with Florian, un- 

perceived. 
Cat-footed thro' the town and half 

in dread 
To hear my father's clamor at our 

backs 
With Ho! from some bay-window 

shake the night; 
But all was quiet: from the bas- 

tion'd walls 
Like threaded spiders, one by 

one, we dropt, 
And flying reach'd the frontier: 

then we crost 
To a livelier land; and so by tilth 

and grange. 
And vines, and blowing" bosks of no 

wilderness. 
We gain'd the mother-city^ thick 

with towers. 
And in the imperial palace found 

the king. 

His name was Gama; crack'd 
and small his voice. 
But bland the smile that like a 

wrinkling wind 
On glassy water drove his cheek 

in lines; 
A little dry old man, without a 

star,» 
Not like a king: three days he 

feasted us. 
And on the fourth I spake of why 

we came. 
And my betroth'd. 'You do us, 
Prince,' he said, 
6 Before the moon had become full. 
' Blooming thickets. 
8 Capital City. 
With no military decorations. 



777^ PRINCESS. 



1-20 Airing a snowy hand and signet 

gem, 
'All honor. We remember love 

ourself 
In our sweet youth: there did a 

compact pass 
Long summers back, a kind of 

ceremony — 
I think the year in which our 

olives fail'd. 
I would you had her, Prince, with 

all my heart. 
With my full heart: but there 

were widows here. 
Two widows. Lady Psyche, Lady 

Blanche; 
They fed her theories, in and out 

of place 
Maintaining that with equal hus- 
bandry 
130 The woman were an equal to the 

man. 
They harp'd on this; with this 

our banquets rang; 
Our dances broke and buzz'd in 

knots of talk; 
Nothing but this; my very ears 

were hot 
To hear them: knowledge, so my 

daughter held. 
Was all in all: they had but been, 

she thought. 
As children; they must lose the 

child, assume 
The woman : then. Sir, awful 

odes she wrote, 
Too awful, sure, for what they 

treated of, 
But all she is and does is awful ; 

odes 
140 About this losing of the child; 

and rhymes 
And dismal lyrics, prophesying 

change 
Beyond all reason: these the wo- 
men sang; 



And they that know such things — 

I sought but peace; ' 

No critic I— would call them mas- 
terpieces: 
They master'd me. At last she 

begg'd a boon, 
A certain summer-palace which I 

have , 

Hard by your father's frontier: I 

said no, 
Yet being an easy man, gave it: 

and there, 
All wild to found an University 
For maidens, on the spur she fled; 150 

and more 
We know not, — only this: they 

see no men. 
Not even her brother Arac, nor 

the twins 
Her brethren, tho' they love her, 

look upon her 
As on a kind of paragon; and I 
(Pardon me saying it) were much 

loth to breed 
Dispute betwixt myself and mine: 

but since 
(And I confess with right) you 

think me bound 
In some sort, I can give you fet- 
ters to her; 
And yet, to speak the truth, I rate 

your chance 
Almost at naked nothing.' 

Thus the king; 160 
And I, tho' nettled that he seem'd 

to slur 
With garrulous ease and oily 

courtesies 
Our formal compact, yet, not less 

(all frets 
But chafing me on fire to find my 

bride) 
Went forth again with both my 

friends. We rode 
Many a long league back to the 

North. At last 



PART I. 



23 



From hills, that look'd across a 
land of hope, 

We dropt with evening on a rus- 
tic town 

Set in a gleaming river's crescent- 
curve, 
170 Close at the boundary of the lib- 
erties;!" 

There, enter'd an old hostel, call'd 
mine host 

To council, plied him with his 
richest wines. 

And show'd the late-writ letters 
of the king. 

He with a long low sibilation.^i 

stared 
As blank as death in marble; then 

exclaim'd 
Averring it was clear against all 

rules 
For any man to go: but as his 

brain 
Began to mellow, 'If the king,' he 

said, 
'Had given us letters, was he 

bound to speak? 
iSo The king would bear him out;' 

and at the last — 
The summerly of the vine in all 

his veins — ■ 
'No doubt that we might make it 

worth his while. 
She once had past that way; he 

heard her speak; 
She scared him; life! he never 

saw the like; 
She look'd as grand as doomsday 

and as grave: 
And he, he reverenced his liege- 
lady there; 

'"The college grounds to which stu- 
dent.s were confined. 

" A prolonged exclamation. 

'2 The warmth of the wine which he 
had been drinking. 



He always made a point to post 
with mares; 

His daughter and his housemaid 
were the boys: 

The land, he understood, for miles 
about 

Was till'd by women; all the 190 
swine were sows. 

And all the dogs' — 

But while he jested thus. 

A thought flash'd thro' me which 
I clothed in act. 

Remembering how we three pre- 
sented^s Maid, 

Or Nymph, or Goddess, at high 
tide of feast. 

In masque or pageant at my fath- 
er's court. 

We sent mine host to purchase fe- 
male gear; 

He brought it, and himself, a 
sight to shake 

The midrifif of despair with laugh- 
ter, holp 

To lace us up, till each in maiden 
plumes 

We rustled: him we gave a costly 200 
bribe 

To guerdon!^ silence, mounted 
our good steeds. 

And boldly ventured on the liber- 
ties. 

We follow'd up the river as we 
rode. 
And rode till midnight, when the 

college lights 
Began to glitter firefly-like in 

copse 
And linden alley: then we past an 

arch. 
Whereon a woman-statue rose 

with wings 
From four wing'd horses dark 
against the stars; 
13 Assumed the place of. 
'* To assure secrecy. 



24 



THE PRINCESS. 



And some inscription ran along 

the front, 
210 But deep in shadow: further on 

we gain'd 
A little street half garden and half 

house, 
But scarce could hear each other 

speak for noise 
Of clocks and chimes, like silver 

hammers falling 
On silver anvils, and the splash 

and stir 
Of fountains spouted up and 

showering down 
In meshes of the jasmine and the 

rose; 
And all about us peal'd the night- 
ingale. 
Rapt in her song, and careless of 

the snare. 

There stood a bust of Pallas for 

a sign, 
220 By two sphere lamps blazon'd^^ 

like Heaven and Earth 
With constellation and with con- 
tinent, 
Above an entry: riding in, we 

call'd: 
A plump-arm'd ostleress and a 

stable wench 
Came running at the call, and 

help'd us down. 
Then stept a buxom hostess forth, 

and sail'd, 
Full-blown, before us into rooms 

which gave^" 
Upon a pillar'd porch, the bases 

lost 

'8 In the semblance of. 
i« Were entered from, etc. 



In laurel: her we ask'd of that 

and this, 
And who were tutors. 'Lady 

Blanche,' she said, 
'And Lady Psyche.' 'Which was 230 

prettiest, 
Best-natured?' 'Lady Psyche.' 

'Hers are we,' 
One voice, we cried; and I sat ' 

down and wrote 
In such a hand as when a field of 

corn 
Bowsi" all its ears before the 

roaring East: 

'Three ladies of the Northern 

empire pray 
Your Highness would enroll 

them with your own. 
As Lady Psyche's pupils.' 

This I seal'd: 
The seal was Cupid bent above a 

scroll. 
And o'er his head Uranian^^ Ve- 
nus hung, 
And raised the blinding bandage 240 

from his eyes. 
I gave the letter to be sent with 

dawn; 
And then to bed, where half in 

doze I seem'd 
To float about a glimmering 

night, and watch 
A full sea glazed with muftled 

moonlight swell 
On some dark shore just seen 

that it was rich. 

" I<ike a woman's writing. 

' 8 Plato asserted there were two Goddes- 
ses called Aphrodite (Venus), one the 
heavenly Venus, daughterof Uranus — one 
the common Venus, daughter of Zeus and 
Dione. 



PART I. 



25 




As thro' the land at eve we went, 

And pluck'd the ripen'd ears, 
We fell out, my wife and I, 
O we fell out I know not why, 

And kiss'd again with tears. 
And blessings on the falling out 

That all the more endears, 
When we fall out with those we 
love 

And kiss again with tears! 
For when we came where lies the 
child 

We lost in other years. 
There above the little grave, 
O there above the little grave. 

We kiss'd again with tears. 





^ €JO-e»J37CT?».Sj?cS^ «'''5?^«i=7=^rj«-C52!.^ 




PART II. 



i15;;2222:/%^-iC;i^«C4,<3'=£b£^^^ 



A T break of day the College 
■'*• Portress came: 

She brought us Academic silks, m 

hue 
The lilac, with a silken hood to 

each. 
And zoned with gold; and now 

when these were on, 
And we as rich as moths from 

dusk cocoons, 
She, curtseying her obeisance, let 

us know 
The Princess Ida waited. Out we 

paced, 
I first, and following thro' the 

porch that sangi 
.\I1 round with laurel, issued in 

a court 
o Compact of lucid marbles, boss'd- 

with lengths 
Of classic frieze, with ample awn- 
ings gay 
Betwixt the pillars, and with great 

urns of flowers. 
The Muses and the Graces, 

group'd in threes, 
Enring'd a billowing fountain in 

the midst; 
And here and there on lattice 

edges lay 
Or book or lute; but hastily we 

past, 
And up a flight of stairs into the 

hall. 

' Probably refers to the rustling of the 
leaves in the wind. 

' Bestudded. 



There at a board by tome and 

paper sat, 
With two tame leopards couch'd 

beside her throne, 
All beauty compass'd in a female 20 

form, 
The Princess; liker to the inhabi- 
tant 
Of some clear planet close upon 

the Sun, 
Than our man's earth; such eyes 

were in her head. 
And so much grace and power, 

breathing down 
From over her arch'd brows, 

with every turn 
Lived thro' her to the tips of he; 

long hands. 
And to her feet. She rose her 

height, and said: 

'We give you welcome: not 

without redound 
Of use and glory to yourselves ye 

come. 
The first-fruits of the stranger: 30 

aftertime. 
And that full voice which circles 

round the grave. 
Will rank you nobly, mingled up 

with me. 
What! are the ladies of your land 

so tall?' 
'We of the court,' said Cyril. 

"From the court,' 
She answer'd, 'then ye know the 

Prince?' and he: 



PART II. 



27 



'The climax of his age! as tho' 

there were 
One rose in all the world, your 

Highness that, 
He worships your ideal.' She re- 
plied: 
'We scarcely thought in our own 

hall to hear 
40 This barren verbiage, current 

among men, 
Light coin, the tinsel clink of 

compliment. 
Your flight from out your book- 
less wilds would seem 
As arguing love of knowledge 

and of power; 
Your language proves you still 

the child. Indeed, 
We dream not of him: when we 

set our hand 
To this great work, we purposed 

with ourself 
Never to wed. You likewise will 

do well. 
Ladies, in entering here, to cast 

and fling 
The tricks which make us toys of 

men, that so, 
50 Some future time, if so indeed you 

will. 
You may with those self-styled 

our lords ally 
Your fortunes, justlier balanced, 

scale with scale.' 

At those high words, we, con- 
scious of ourselves. 

Perused^ the matting; then an 
officer 

Rose up, and read the statutes, 
such as these: 

Not for three years to correspond 
with home; 

Not for thr-ee years to cross the 
liberties; 

' Scanned, surveyed, in the sense of 
down cast eyes. 



Not for three years to speak with 

any men; 
And many more, which hastily 60 

subscribed, 
We enter'd^ on the boards: and 

'Now,' she cried, 
'Ye are green wood, see ye warp 

not. Look, our hall! 
Our statues! — not of those that 

men desire. 
Sleek Odalisques, or oracles of 

mode, 
Nor stunted squaws of West or 

East; but she 
That taught the Sabine how to 

rule, and she 
The foundress^ of the Babylonian 

wall, 
The Carian Artemisia strong in 

war. 
The Rhodope that built the pyra- 
mid, 
Clelia," Cornelia, with the Palmy- 70 

rene" 
That fought Aurelian, and the Ro- 
man brows 
Of Agrippina. Dwell with these, 

and lose 
Convention, since to look on no- 
ble forms 
Makes* noble thro' the sensuous 

organism 
That which is higher. O lift your 

natures up; 
Embrace our aims; work out 

your freedom. Girls, 
Knowledge is now no more a 

fountain seal'd! 

■• In the English Universities the regis- 
ter of students names is officially known 
as "the boards." 

« Semiramis. 

•A Roman Maiden, hostage to Por- 
sena, who escaped and swam the Tiber. 

'Zenobia, Queen of Palmyra, 

8 Ennobles the mind. 



28 



THE PRINCESS. 



Drink deep, until the habits of the 
slave, 

The sins of emptiness, gossip and 
spite 

And slander, die. Better not be 
at all 
o Than not be noble. Leave us; 
you may go: 

To-day the Lady Psyche will har- 
angue 

The fresh arrivals of the week be- 
fore; 

For they press in from all the 
provinces, 

And fill the hive.' 

She spoke, and bow- 
ing waved 

Dismissal: back again we crost 
the court 

To Lady Psyche's: as we enter'd 
in, 

There sat along the forms, like 
morning doves 

That sun their milky bosoms on 
the thatch, 

A patient range of pupils; she 
herself 
o Erect behind a desk of satin- 
wood, 

A quick brunette, well-moulded, 
falcon-eyed. 

And on the hither side, or so she 
look'd, 

Of twenty summers. At her left, 
a child. 

In shining draperies, headed like 
a star. 

Her maiden babe, a double April 
old, 

Aglaia slept. We sat: the Lady 
glanced: 

Then Florian, but no livelier than 
the dame 

Thato whisper'd 'Asses' ears' 
among the sedge, 

9 See CI. Diet, under Midas. 



'My sister.' 'Comely, too, by all 

that's fair,' 
Said Cyril. 'O hush, hush!' and loo 

she began. 

'This world was once a fluid 
hazel" of light, 

Till toward the centre set the 
starry tides. 

And eddied into suns, that wheel- 
ing cast 

The planets: then the monster, 
then the man; 

Tatoo'd or woaded, winter-clad in 
skins, 

Raw from the prime, and crush- 
ing down his mate; 

As yet we find in barbarous isles, 
and here 

Among the lowest.' 

Thereupon she took 

A bird's-eye view of all the un- 
gracious past; 

Glanced at the legendary Amazon no 

As emblematic of a nobler age; 

Appraised the Lycian^i custom, 
spoke of those 

That layi- at wine with Lar and 
Lucumo; 

Ran down the Persian, Grecian, 
Roman lines 

Of empire, and the woman's state 
in each, 

How far from just; till warming 
with her theme 

'1 Referring to the theory of the Nebu- 
lar Hypothesis. 

"The Ivycians took their names from 
their mottiers and traced their ancestry 
in the female line. 

''The Etruscan women were admitted 
to banquets on equal terms with the men. 
l,arorI,ars an Etruscan title equivalent 
to King — I<ucamoan Etrurian title equiv- 
alent to the Roman Patricius. 



PART II. 



29 



She fulmined^^ out her scorn of 

laws SaHquei-i 
And little-footed China, touch'd 

on Mahomet 
With much contempt, and came 

to chivalry; 
120 When some respect, however 

slight, was paid 
To woman, superstition all awry: 
However, then commenced the 

dawn: a beam 
Had slanted forward, falling in a 

land 
Of promise; fruit would follow. 

Deep, indeed, 
Their debt of thanks to her who 

first had dared 
To leap the rotten pales of preju- 
dice, 
Disyoke their necks from cus- 
tom, and assert 
None lordlier than themselves 

but that which made 
Woman and man. She had found- 
ed; they must build. 
130 Here might they learn whatever 

men were taught: 
Let them not fear: some said 

their heads were less: 
Some men's were small; not they 

the least of men; 
For often fineness compensated 

size: 
Besides the brain was like the 

hand, and grew 
With using; thence the man's, if 

more was more; 
He took advantage of his strength 

to be 
First in the field: some ages had 

been lost; 

'3 Thundered. Cf. Spenser's F. Q. 
III., 2. 5. 

'*The Salic law excluded women from 
the throne and from inheriting certain 
lands. 



But woman ripen'd earlier, and 

her life 
Was longer; and albeit their glo- 
rious names 
Were fewer, scatter'd stars, yet 140 

since in truth 
The highest is the measure of the 

man. 
And not the Kafifir, Hottentot, 

Malay, 
Nor those horn-handed breakers 

of the glebe. 
But Homer, Plato, Veriilam;i^ 

even so 
With woman: and in arts of gov- 
ernment 
Elizabeth and others; arts of war 
The peasant Joan and others; arts 

of grace 
Sappho and others vied with any 

man: 
And, last not least, she who had 

left her place. 
And bow'd her state to them, that 150 

they might grow 
To use and power on this Oasis, 

lapt 
In the arms of leisure, sacred 

from the blight 
Of ancient influence and scorn. 
At last 
She rose upon a wind of prophecy 
Dilating on the future: 'every- 
where 
Two heads in council, two beside 

the hearth. 
Two in the tangled business of 

the world. 
Two in the liberal offices of life. 
Two plummets dropt for one to 

sound the abyss 
Of science and the secrets of the 160 

mind; 
Musician, painter, sculptor, critic, 

more; 

'5 Francis Bacon. 



30 



THE PRINCESS. 



And everywhere the broad and 

bounteous Earth 
Should bear a double growth of 

those rare souls, 
Poets, whose thoughts enrich the 

blood of the world.' 

She ended here, and beckon'd 

us: the rest 
Parted: and, glowing full-faced 

welcome, she 
Began to address us, and was 

moving on 
In gratulation, till as when a 

boat 
Tacks and the slacken'd sail flaps, 

all her voice 
,0 Faltering and fluttering in her 

throat, she cried, 
'My brother!' 'Well, my sister.' 

'O,' she said. 
'What do you here? and in this 

dress? and these? 
Why, who are these? a wolf with- 
in the fold! 
A pack of wolves! the Lord be 

gracious to me! 
A plot, a plot, a plot, to ruin all!' 
'No plot, no plot,' he answer'd. 

'Wretched boy, 
How saw you not the inscription 

on the gate, 
LET NO MAN ENTER IN ON 

PAIN OF DEATH?' 
'And if I had,' he answer'd, 'who 

could think 
5o The softer^'' Adams of your Acad- 
eme, 
O sister. Sirens tho' they be, were 

such 
As chanted on the blanching 

bones of men?' 
'But you will find it otherwise,' 

she said. 

'6 Dawson considers this as "female 
founders." 



'You jest: ill jesting with edge- 
tools! my vow 
Binds me to speak, and O that 

iron will. 
That axelike edge unturnable, our 

Head. 
The Princess!' 'Well then. 

Psyche, take my life. 
And nail me like a weaseP" on a 

grange 
For warning; bury me beside the 

gate, 
And cut this epitaph above my 190 

bones: 
Here lies a brother by a sister 

slain, 
All for the common good of wom- 
ankind.' 
"Let me die too,' said Cyril, 'hav- 
ing seen 
And heard the Lady Psyche.' 

I struck in: 
'Albeit so mask'd. Madam, I love 

the truth; 
Receive it: and in me behold the 

Prince 
Your countryman, affianced years 

ago 
To the Lady Ida: here, for here 

she was. 
And thus (what other way was 

left?) I came.' 
'O Sir, O Prince, I have no coun- 200 

try. none; 
If any, this; but none. Whate'er 

I was 
Disrooted, what I am is grafted 

here. 
Affianced, Sir? love-whispers may 

not breathe 
Within this vestal limit, and how 

should I, 
Who am not mine, say, live: the 

thunderbolt 

"Weasels and mice were sometimes 
hung on a granary as a warning to thieves. 
Cf. Milton, Comus 175. 



PART II. 



31 



Hangs silent; but prepare: I 
speak; it falls.' 

*Yet pause,' I said: 'for that in- 
scription there, 

I think no more of deadly lurks 
therein, 

Than in a clapper clapping in a 
garth,i8 
210 To scare the fowl from fruit: if 
more there be, 

If more and acted on, what fol- 
lows? war; 

Your own work marr'd: for this 
your Academe, 

Whichever side be victor, in the 
halloo 

Will topple to the trumpet down, 
and pass 

With all fair theories only made 
to gild 

A stormless summer.' 'Let the 
Princess judge 

Of that,' she said: 'farewell. Sir — 
and to you. 

I shudder at the sequel, but I go.' 

"Are you that Lady Psyche,' I 

rejoin'd, 
220 'The fifth in line from that old 

Florian, 
Yet hangs his portrait in my 

father's hall 
(The gaunt old baron with his 

beetle brow 
Sun-shaded in the heat of dusty 

fights) 
As he bestrode my grandsire, 

when he fell. 
And all else fled? we point to it, 

and we say. 
The loyal warmth of Florian is 

not cold. 
But branches current yet in kin- 
dred veins.' 

'8 A garden. 



'Are you that Psyche,' Florian 

added; 'she 
With whom I sang about the 

morning hills. 
Flung ball, flew kite, and raced 230 

the purple fly, 
And snared the squirrel of the 

glen? are you 
That Psyche, wont to bind my 

throbbing brow, 
To smooth my pillow, mix the 

foaming draught 
Of fever, tell me pleasant tales, 

and read 
My sickness down to happy 

dreams? are you 
That brother-sister Psyche, both 

in one? 
You were that Psyche, but what 

are you now?' 
'You are that Psyche,' Cyril said, 

'for whom 
I would be that forever which I 

seem, 
Woman, if I might sit beside 240 

your feet, 
And glean your scatter'd sapi- 
ence.' 

Then once more, 
'Are you that Lady Psyche,' I 

began, 
'That on her bridal, m.orn before 

she past 
From all her old companions, 

when the king 
Kiss'd her pale cheek, declared 

that ancient ties 
Would still be dear beyond the 

southern hills; 
That were there any of our people 

there 
In want or peril, there was one 

to hear 
And help them? look! for such 

are these and I.' 
'Are you that Psyche,' Florian 250 

ask'd, 'to whom, 



THE PRINCESS. 



In gentler days, your arrow- 
wounded fawn 

Came flying while you sat beside 
the well? 

The creature laid his muzzle on 
your lap, 

And sobb'd, and you sobb'd with 
it, and the blood 

Was sprinkled on your kirtle, and 
you wept. 

That was fawn's blood, not broth- 
er's, yet you wept. 

O by the bright head of my lit- 
tle niece, 

You were that Psyche, and what 
are you now?' 

'You are that Psyche,' Cyril said 
again, 
io "The mother of the sweetest little 
maid 

That ever crow'd for kisses.' 

'Out upon it!' 

She answer'd, 'peace! and why 
should I not play 

The Spartan Mother with emo- 
tion, be 

The Lucius^^ Junius Brutus of my 
kind? 

Him you call great: he for the 
common weal. 

The fading politics of mortal 
Rome, 

As I might slay this child, if good 
need were. 

Slew both his sons: and I, shall I, 
on whom 

The secular emancipation turns 
70 Of half this world, be swerved 
from right to save 
A prince, a brother? a little will I 

yield. 
Best so, perchance, for us, and 

well for you; 
O hard, when love and duty clash! 
I fear 

'5 The father who condemned hi.s sons 
to death. 



My conscience will not count me 

fleckless; yet — 
Hear my conditions: promise 

(otherwise 
You perish) as you came, to slip 

away 
To-day, to-morrow, soon: it shall 

be said. 
These women were too barbarous, 

would not learn; 
They fled, who might have shamed 

us: promise, all.' 

What could we else, we prom- 2S0 
ised each; and she. 

Like some wild creature newly- 
caged, commenced 

A to-and-fro, so pacing till she 
paused 

By Florian; holding out her lily 
arms 

Took both his hands, and smil- 
ing faintly said: 

'I knew you at the first; tho' you 
have grown 

You scarce have alter'd: I am 
sad and glad 

To see you, Florian. I give thee 
to death. 

My brother! it was duty spoke, 
not I. 

My needful seeming harshness, 
pardon it. 

Our mother, is she well?' 

With that she kiss'd 290 

His forehead, then, a moment 
after, clung 

About him, and betwixt them 
blossom'd up 

From out a common vein of mem- 
ory 

Sweet household talk, and phrases 
of the hearth, 

And far allusion, till the gracious 
dews 

Began to glisten and to fall: and 
while 



PART II. 



33 



They stood, so rapt, we gazing, 
came a voice, 

'I brought a message here from 
Lady Blanche.' 

Back started she, and turning 
round we saw 
300 The Lady Blanche's daughter 
where she stood, 

Melissa, with her hand upon the 
lock, 

A rosy blonde, and in a college 
gown. 

That clad her like an April daf- 
fodilly 

(Her mother's color), with her 
lips apart. 

And all her thoughts as fair with- 
in her eyes, 

As bottom agates seen to wave 
and float 

In crystal currents of clear morn- 
ing seas. 

So stood that same fair creature 

at the door. 
Then Lady Psyche, 'Ah — Melissa 

— you! 
310 You heard us?' and Melissa, 'O 

pardon me! 
I heard, I could not help it, did 

not wish; 
But, dearest Lady, pray you fear 

me not, 
Nor think I bear that heart with- 
in my breast. 
To give three gallant gentlemen 

to death.' 
T trust you,' said the other, 'for 

we two 
Were always friends, none closer, 

elm and vine: 
But yet your mother's jealous 

temperament — 
Let not your prudence, dearest, 

drowse, or prove 



The Danaid-"^ of a leaky vase, for 

fear 
This whole foundation ruin, and 320 

I lose 
My honor, these their lives.' 'Ah, 

fear me not,' 
Replied Melissa; 'no — I would 

not tell. 
No, not for all Aspasia's clever- 
ness, 
No, not to answer. Madam, all 

those hard things 
That Sheba came to ask of Solo- 
mon.' 
'Be it so,' the other, 'that we still 

may lead 
The new light up, and culminate 

in peace, 
For Solomon may come to Sheba 

yet.' 
Said Cyril, 'Madam, he the wisest 

man 
Feasted the woman wisest then, in 330 

halls 
Of Lebanonian cedar; nor should 

you 
(Tho', Madam, you should ans- 
wer, we would ask) 
Less welcome find among us, if 

you came 
Among us, debtors for our lives 

to you. 
Myself for something more.' He 

said not what, 
But 'Thanks,' she ariswer'd, "go: 

we have been too long 
Together: keep your hoods about 

the face; 
They do so that affect abstraction 

here. 
Speak little; mix not with the 

rest; and hold 
Your promise: all, I trust, may 340 

yet be well.' 

«o Rd. Hb. See Danaus. 



34 



THE PRINCESS. 



We turn'd to go, but Cyril took 
the child, 

And held her round the knees 
against his waist. 

And blew the swollen cheek of a 
trumpeter, 

While Psyche watch'd them, smil- 
ing, and the child 

Push'd her flat hand against his 
face and laugh'd; 

And thus our conference closed. 

And then we strolled 

For half the day thro' stately 
theatres 

Bench'd crescent-wise. In each 
we sat, we heard 

The grave Professor. On the lec- 
ture slate 
550 The circle rounded under female 
hands 

With flawless demonstration: fol- 
low'd then 

A classic lecture, rich in senti- 
ment. 

With scraps of thunderous epic 
lilted out 

By violet-hooded Doctors, elegies 

And quoted odes, and jewels five- 
words-long 

That on the stretch'd forefinger 
of all Time 

Sparkle forever: then we dipt in 
all 

That treats of whatsoever is, the 
state, 

The total chronicles of man, the 
mind, 
;6o The morals, something of the 
frame, the rock. 

The star, the bird, the fish, the 
shell, the flower. 

Electric, chemic laws, and all the 
rest, 

And whatsoever can be taught 
and known; 

Till like three horses that have 
broken fence, 



And glutted all night long breast- 
deep in corn. 

We issued gorged with knowl- 
edge, and I spoke: 

'Why, Sirs, they do all this as 
well as we.' 

'They hunt old trails,' said Cyril, 
'very well; 

But when did woman ever yet 
invent?' 

'Ungracious!' answer'd Florian; 370 
"have you learnt 

No more from Psyche's lecture, 
you that talk'd 

The trash that made me sick, and 
almost said?' 

'O trash.' he said, 'but with a ker- 
nel in it! 

Should I not call her wise who 
made me wise? 

And learnt? I learnt more from 
her in a flash 

Than if my brainpan were an 
empty hull, 

And every Muse tumbled a science 
in. 

A thousand hearts lie fallow in 
these halls, 

And round these halls a thousand 
baby loves 

Fly twanging headless arrows at 380 
the hearts, 

Whence follows many a vacant 
pang; but O 

With me. Sir, enter'd in the big- 
ger boy. 

The head of all the golden-shafted 
firm. 

The long-limb'd lad that had a 
Psyche too; 

He cleft-i me thro' the stomacher; 
and now 

What think you of it, Florian? do 
I chase 

The substance or the shadow? will 
it hold? 

2' Cf. Part 4, line 264. 



PART II. 



35 



I have no sorcerer's malison on 
me. 

No ghostly hauntings like his 
Highness. I 
390 Flatter myself that always every- 
where 

I know the substance when I see 
it. Well, 

Are castles shadows? Three of 
them? Is she 

The sweet proprietress a shadow? 
If not, 

Shall those three castles patch my 
tatter'd coat? 

For dear are those three castles 
to my wants, 

And dear is sister Psyche to my 
heart, 

And two dear things are one of 
double worth; 

And much I might have said, but 
that my zone 

Unmann'd me: then the Doctors! 
O to hear 
400 The Doctors! O to watch the 
thirsty plants 

Imbibing! once or twice I thought 
to roar, 

To break my chain, to shake my 
mane: but thou, 

Modulate me, soul of mincing 
mimicry! 

Make liquid treble of that bas- 
soon, my throat; 

Abase those eyes that ever loved 
to meet 

Star-sisters answering under cres- 
cent brows; 

Abate the stride which speaks of 
man, and loose 

A flying charm of blushes o'er 
this cheek. 

Where they like swallows com- 
ing out of time 
410 Will wonder why they came: but 
hark the bell 



For dinner, let us go I' 

And in we stream'd 

Among the columns, pacing staid 
and still 

By twos and threes, till all from 
end to end 

With beauties every shade of 
brown and fair 

In colors gayer than the morning 
mist. 

The long hall glitter'd like a bed 
of flowers. 

How might a man not wander 
from his wits 

Pierced thro' with eyes, but that I 
kept mine own 

Intent on her, who rapt in glori- 
ous dreams, 

The second-sight of some As- 420 
traean-- age, 

Sat compass'd with professors: 
they, the while, 

Discuss'd a doubt and tost it to 
and fro: 

A clamor thicken'd, mixt with in- 
most terms 

Of art and science: Lady Blanche 
alone 

Of faded form and haughtiest line- 
aments, 

With all her autumn tresses false- 
ly brown, 

Shot sidelong daggers at us, a 
tiger-cat 

In act to spring. 

At last a solemn grace 

Concluded, and we sought the 
gardens: there 

One walk'd reciting by herself, 430 
and one 

In this hand held a volume as to 
read. 

And smoothed a petted peacock 
down with that: 

" Cl. Diet. See Milton, Hymn on Nativ- 
ity, 133- 



THE PRINCESS. 



Some to a low song oar'd a shal- 
lop by. 
Or under arches of the marble 

bridge 
Hung, shadow'd from the heat: 

some hid and sought 
In the orange thickets: others 

tost a ball 
Above the fountain-jets, and back 

again 
With laughter: others lay about 

the lawns. 
Of the older sort, and murmur'd 

that their May 
1° Was passing: what was learning 

unto tliem? 
They wish'd to marry; they could 

rule a house; 
Men hated learned women: but 

we three 
Sat muffled like the Fates; and 

often came 



Melissa hitting all we saw with 

shafts 
Of gentle satire, kin to charity, 
That harm'd not: then day 

droopt; the chapel bells 
Call'd us: we left the walks; we 

mixt with those 
Six hundred maidens clad in 

purest white, 
Before two streams of light from 

wall to wall. 
While the great organ almost 

burst his pipes, 
Groaning for power, and rolling 

thro' the court 
A long melodious thunder to the 

sound 
Of solemn psalms, and silver lit- 
anies, 
The work of Ida, to call down 

from Heaven 
A blessing on her labors for the 

world. 



Sweet and low, sweet and low, 

Wind of the western sea. 
Low, low, breathe and blov/, 

Wind of the western sea! 
Over the rolling waters go. 
Come from the dying moon, and blow, 

Blow him again to me; 
While my little one, while my pretty one sleeps. 



Sleep and rest, sleep and rest. 
Father will come to thee soon; 

Rest, rest, on mother's breast. 
Father will come to thee soon; 

Father will come to his babe in the nest, 

Silver sails all out of the west 
Under the silver moon: 
Sleep, my little one, sleep, my pretty one, sleep. 



••f:jO-<.;2ffCT?».f;j;33^ ''!'=5?>3«45=5vrj«>"<S^<= 



PART 111. 



»T5;:H32!lM3=w:iC5i^ tssJs.^J'aCtiStPTtf 



MORN in the white wake of the 
morning star 

Came furrowing all the orient in- 
to gold. 

We rose, and each by other drest 
with care 

Descended to the court, that lay- 
three parts 

In shadow, but the Muses' heads 
were touch'd 

Above the darkness from their na- 
tive East. 

There while we stood beside 

the fount, and watch'd 
Or seem'd to watch the dancing 

bubble, approach'd 
Melissa, tinged with wan from 

lack of sleep, 
M Or grief, and glowing round her 

dewy eyes 
The circled Iris of a night of 

tears; 
'And fly,' she cried, 'O fly, while 

yet you may! 
My mother knows:' and when I 

ask'd her 'how,' 
'My fault,' she wept, 'my fault! 

and yet not mine; 
Yet mine in part. O hear me, 

pardon me! 
My mother, 't is her wont from 

night to night 
To rail at Lady Psyche and her 

side. 
She says the Princess should 

have been the Head, 
Herself and Lady Psyche the two 

arms; 



And so it was agreed when first 20 
they came; 

But Lady Psyche was the right 
hand now, 

And she the left, or not or seldom 
used; 

Hers more than half the students, 
all the love. 

And so last night she fell to can- 
vass you: 

Her countrywomen! she did not 
envy her. 

"Who ever saw such wild bar- 
barians.'' 

Girls? — more like men!" and at 
these words the snake, 

My secret, seem'd to stir within 
my breast; 

And O, Sirs, could I help it. but 
my cheek 

Began to burn and burn, and her 30 
lynx eye 

To fix and make me hotter, till 
she laugh'd: 

'"O marvellously modest maiden, 
you! 

Men! girls, like men! why, if 
they had been men 

You need not set your thoughts 
in rubric! thus 

For wholesale comment." Par- 
don, I am shamed 

That I must needs repeat for my 
excuse 

What looks so little graceful: 
"men" (for still 

' Refers to Melissa's blushes ; the ni- 
rics in a prayer book are printed in red. 



THE PRINCESS. 



My mother went revolving on the 

word) 
"And so they are, — very like men 

indeed — 
And with that woman closeted 

for hours!" 
Then came these dreadful words 

out one by one, 
"Why — these — are — men:" I shud- 

der'd: "and you know it." 
"O ask me nothing," I said: "And 

she knows too, 
And she conceals it." So my 

mother clutch'd 
The truth at once, but with no 

word from me; 
And now thus early risen she goes 

to inform 
The Princess: Lady Psyche will 

be crush'd; 
But you may yet be saved, and 

therefore fly: 
But heal me with your pardon 

ere you go.' 

'What pardon, sweet Melissa, 
for a blush?' 

Said Cyril: 'Pale one, blush again; 
than wear 

Those lilies, better blush our lives 
away. 

Yet let us breathe for one hour 
more in Heaven,' 

He added, 'let some classic An- 
gel speak 

In scorn of us, "They mounted, 
Ganymedes, 

To tumble, Vulcans,- on the sec- 
ond morn." 

But I will melt this marble into 
wax 

To yield us farther furlough:' and 
he went. 

Melissa shook her doubtful 

curls, and thought 
t p. ly., Bk. I., 740 fol. 



He scarce would prosper. 'Tell 60 

us,' Florian ask'd, 
'How grew this feud betwixt the 

right and left.' 
'O long ago,' she said, 'betwixt 

these two 
Division smoulders hidden; 'tis 

my mother, 
Too jealous, often fretful as the 

wind 
Pent in a crevice: much I bear 

with her: 
I never knew my father, but she 

says 
(God help her!) she was wedded 

to a fool; 
And still she rail'd against the 

state of things. 
She had the care of Lady Ida's 

youth, 
And from the Queen's decease she 7° 

brought her up. 
But when your sister came she 

won the heart 
Of Ida: they were still together, 

grew 
(For so they said themselves) in- 
osculated; 
Consonant chords that shiver to 

one note; 
One mind in all things: yet my 

mother still 
Affirms your Psyche thieved her 

theories. 
And angled with them for her 

pupil's love: 
She calls her plagiarist; I know 

not what: 
But I must go; I dare not tarry,' 

and light. 
As flies the shadow of a bird, she 80 

fled. 

Then murmur'd Florian, gazing 
after her: 
'An open-hearted maiden, true 
and pure. 



PART III. 



39 



If I could love, why this were she: 
how pretty 

Her blushing was, and how she 
blush'd again. 

As if to close with Cyril's ran- 
dom wish! 

Not like your Princess cramm'd 
with erring pride. 

Nor like poor Psyche whom she 
drags in tow.' 

'The crane,' I said, 'may chat- 
ter of the crane, 
The dove may murmur of the 

dove, but I 
90 An eagle clang an eagle to the 

sphere.^ 
My princess, O my princess! true 

she errs. 
But in her own grand way; being 

herself 
Three times more noble than 

three score of men. 
She sees herself in every woman 

else, 
And so she wears her error like a 

crown 
To blind the truth and me: for 

her, and her, 
Hebes are they to hand ambrosia, 

mix 
The nectar; but — ah, she — when- 
e'er she moves 
The Samian Here^ rises, and she 

speaks 
100 A Alemnon smitten with the 

morning sun.' 

So saying from the court we 
paced, and gain'd 
The terrace ranged along the 
northern front, 

« To the upper air. Cf. Milton, Comus, 
Song to Echo. 

«Juno, who had a great affection for 
the island of Samos. Cf. .^Eneid ; I, 16 ; 
also Rd. Hb. for Memnon. 



And leaning there on those balus- 
ters, high 

Above the empurpled champaign, 
drank the gale 

That blown about the foliage un- 
derneath, 

And sated with the innumerable'" 
rose. 

Beat balm upon our eyelids. 
Hither came 

Cyril, and yawning 'O hard task.' 
he cried: 

'No fighting shadows here! I 
forced a way 

Thro' solid opposition crabb'd no 
and gnarl'd. 

Better to clear prime*^ forests, 
heave and thump 

A league of street in summer sol- 
stice down. 

Than hammer at this reverend 
gentlewoman. 

I knock'd and, bidden, enter'd; 
found her there 

At point" to move, and settled in 
her eyes 

The green malignant light of 
coming storm. 

Sir, I was courteous, every phrase 
well-oil'd, 

As man's could be; yet maiden- 
meek I pray'd 

Concealment: she demanded who 
we were. 

And why we came? I fabled 120 
nothing fair. 

But, your example pilot, told her 
all. 

Up went the hush'd amaze of 
hand and eye. 

But when I dwelt upon your old 
affiance, 

She answer'd sharply that I talk'd 
astray. 

'Cf.part five, line thirteen. 
6 Primeval. 
'About to leave. 



40 



THE PRINCESS. 



I urged the fierce inscription on 

the gate. 
And our three Hves. True — we 

had limed'* ourselves 
With open eyes, and we must take 

the chance. 
But such extremes, I told her, 

well might harm 
The woman's cause. "Not more 

than now," she said, 
;o "So puddled as it is with favor- 
itism." 
I tried the mother's heart. Shame 

might befall 
IMelissa, knowing, saying not she 

knew: 
Her answer was, "Leave me to 

deal with that." 
I spoke of war to come and many 

deaths. 
And she replied, her duty was to 

speak, 
And duty duty, clear of conse- 
quences. 
I grew discouraged, Sir; but since 

I knew 
No rock so hard but that a little 

wave 
May beat admission in a thousand 

years, 
(0 I recommenced: "Decide not ere 

you pause. 
I find you here but in the second 

place, 
Some say the third — the authentic 

foundress you. 
I offer boldly: we will seat you 

highest: 
Wink at our advent; help my 

prince to gain 
His rightful bride, and here I 

promise you 
Some palace in our land, where 

you shall reign 

8 often used by Shakespeare and Mil- 
ton ; refers to use of bird line to snare 
birds. 



The head and heart of all our fair 

she'-'-world. 
And * your great name flow on 

with broadening time 
For ever." Well, she balanced 

this a little, 
And told me she would answer 15a 

us to-day, 
Meantime be mute: thus much, 

nor more I gain'd.' 

He ceasing, came a message 

from the Head. 
'That afternoon the Princess rode 

to take 
The dip of certain strata to the 

North. 
Would we go with her? we should 

find the land 
Worth seeing; and the river made 

a fall 
Out yonder:' then she pointer 1 

on to where 
A double hill ran up his furrowy 

forks 
Beyond the thick-leaved platans 

of the vale. 

Agreed to, this, the day fled 160 
on thro' all 

Its range of duties to the appoint- 
ed hour. 

Then summon'd to the porch we 
went. She stood 

Among her maidens, higher by 
the head. 

Her back against a pillar, her 
foot on one 

Of those tame leopards. Kitten- 
like he roll'd 

And paw'd about her sandal. I 
drew near; 

I gazed. On a sudden my strange 
seizure came 

Upon me, the weird vision of our 
house: 
9Cf. Prol., line 158. 



PART III. 



41 



The Princess Ida seem'd a hollow 
show, 
70 Her gay-furr'd cats a painted fan- 
tasy, 

Her college and her maidens 
empty masks. 

And I myself the shadow of a 
dream, 

For all things were and were not. 
Yet I felt 

]\Iy heart beat thick with passion 
and with awe; 

Then from my breast the involun- 
tary sigh 

Brake, as she smote me with the 
light of eyes 

That lent my knee desire to kneel, 
and shook 

My pulses, till to horse we got, 
and so 

Went forth in long retinue^*^ fol- 
lowing up 
180 The river as it narrow'd to the 
hills. 

I rode beside her and to me she 

said: 
'O friend, we trust that you es- 

teem'd us not 
Too harsh to your companion yes- 

termorn; 
Unwillingly we spake.' 'No — not 

to her,' 
I answer'd, 'but to one of whom 

we spake 
Your Highness might have seem'd 

the thing you say. 
'Again?' she cried, "are you am- 
bassadresses 
From him to me? we give you, 

being strange, 
A license: speak, and let the topic 

die.' 



90 



I stammer'd that I knew him — 
could have wish'd — 

'"Formerly accented on second sylla- 
ble ; P. R. II. 419. 



'Our king expects — was there no 
precontract? 

There is no truer-hearted — ah, you 
seem 

All he prefigured, and he could 
not see 

The bird of passage flying south 
but long'd 

To follow: surely, if your High- 
ness keep 

Your purport, you will shock 
him even to death. 

Or baser courses, children of de- 
spair.' 

'Poor boy,' she said, 'can he not 

read — no books? 
Quoit, tennis, ball — no games? 

nor deals in that 
Which men delight in, martial 200 

exercise? 
To nurse a blind ideal like a girl, 
Methinks he seems no better than 

a girl; 
As girls were once, as we our- 

self have been: 
We had our dreams; perhaps he 

mixt with them: 
We touch on our dead self, nor 

shun to do it, 
Being other — since we learnt our 

meaning here. 
To lift the woman's fallen di- 
vinity 
Upon an even pedestal with man.' 

She paused, and added with a 

haughtier smile, 
'And as to precontracts, we move. 210 

my friend. 
At no man's beck, but know our- 

self and thee, 
O Vashti, noble Vashtil^^ Sum- 

mon'd out 
She kept her state, and left the 

drunken king 
" Esther, I, 12. 



42 



THE PRINCESS. 



To brawl at Shushan underneath 
the palms.' 

'Alas, your Highness breathes 

fulli- East,' I said, 
'On that which leans to you! I 

know the Prince, 
I prize his truth: and then how 

vast a work 
To assail this gray pre-eminence 

of man ! 
You grant me license; might I 

use it? think; 
20 Ere half be done perchance your 

life may fail; 
Then comes the feebler heiress of 

your plan. 
And takes and ruins all; and thus 

your pains 
May only make that footprint up- 
on sand 
Which old-recurring waves of 

prejudice 
Resmooth to nothing: might I 

dread that you, 
With only Fame for spouse and 

your great deeds 
For issue, yet may live in vain, 

and miss 
Meanwhile what every woman 

counts her due, 
Love, children, happiness?' 

And she exclaim'd, 
30 'Peace, you young savage of the 

Northern wild! 
What! tho' your Prince's love 

were like a God's, 
Have we not made ourself the 

sacrifice? 
You are bold indeed: we are not 

talk'd to thus: 
Yet will we say for children, would 

they grew 
Like field-flowers everywhere! we 

like them well: 

'2 Dawson refers it to the Chilling East 
Wind. 



But children die; and let me tell 

you, girl, 
Howe'er you babble, great deeds 

cannot die; 
They with the sun and moon re- 
new their light 
For ever, blessing those that look 

on them. 
Children — that men may pluck 2^0 ^ 

them from our hearts. 
Kill us with pity, break us with 

ourselves — 
O — children — there is nothing up- 
on earth 
More miserable than she that has 

a son 
And sees him err: nor would we 

work for fame ; 
Tho' she perhaps might reap the 

applause of Great, 
Who learns the one POU STO^s 

whence after-hands 
May move the world, tho' she 

herself efifect 
But little: wherefore up and act, 

nor shrink 
For fear our solid aim be dis- 
sipated 
By frail successors. Would, in- 250 

deed, we had been. 
In lieu of many mortal flies, a 

race 
Of giants living each a thousand 

years, 
That we might see our own work 

out, and watch 
The sandy footprint harden into 

stone.' 

I answer'd nothing, doubtful in 
myself 
If that strange poet-princess with 

her grand 
Imaginations might at all be won. 
And she broke out interpreting 
my thoughts: 
13 A place to stand on. 



PART III. 



43 



'No doubt we seem a kind of 
monster to you; 
260 We are used to that: for women, 
up till this, 

Cramp'd under worse than South- 
sea-isle taboo, 1* 

Dwarfs of the gynaeceum,!-^ fail so 
far 

In high desire, they know not, 
cannot guess 

How much their welfare is a pas- 
sion to us. 

If we could give them surer, 
quicker proof — 

O if our end were less achievable 

By slow approaches than by sin- 
gle act 

Of immolation, any phase of 
death. 

We were as prompt to spring 
against the pikes, 
270 Or down the fiery gulf as talk 
of it. 

To compass our dear sisters' lib- 
erties.' 

She bow'd as if to veil a noble 

tear; 
And up we came to where the 

river sloped 
To plunge in cataract, shattering 

on black blocks 
A breath of thunder. O'er it 

shook the woods. 
And danced the color, and, below, 

stuck out 
The bones of some vast bulk that 

lived and roar'd 
Before man was. She gazed a- 

while and said, 
'As these rude bones to us, are 

we to her 
280 That will be.' 'Dare we^^ dream 

of that/ I ask'd, 

"Wb. 

'5 Women's quarters in a Greek house. 

'6 Can we imagine that God, like a mere 

workman, could improve with practice? 



Which wrought us, as the work- 
man and his work. 
That practice betters?' 'How,' she 

cried, 'you love 
The metaphysics! read and earn 

our prize, 
A golden brooch: beneath an 

emerald plane 
Sits Diotima,^' teaching him that 

died 
Of hemlock;!^ our device; 

wrought to the life; 
She rapt upon her subject, he on 

her: 
For there are schools for all.' 

'And yet,' I said, 
'Methinks I have not found 

among them all 
One anatomic' 'Nay, we thought 290 

of that,' 
She answer'd, 'but it pleased us 

not: in truth 
We shudder but to dream our 

maids should ape 
Those monstrous males that 

carve^'' the living hound. 
And cram him with the fragments 

of the grave. 
Or in the dark dissolving human 

heart. 
And holy secrets of this micro- 
cosm, 
Dabbling a shameless hand with 

shameful jest, 
Encarnalize their spirits: yet we 

know 
Knowledge is knowledge, and this 

matter hangs: 
Howbeit ourself, foreseeing casu- 300 

alty. 
Nor willing men should come 

among us, learnt. 
For many weary moons before 

we came, 

i'Rd. Hb. 

isSocrate.''. 

'9 Refers to vivisection. Dawson. 



44 



THE PRINCESS. 



This craft of healing. Were you 

sick, ourself 
Would tend upon you. To your 

question now. 
Which touches on the workman 

and his work. 
Let there be light and there was 

light: 't is so: 
For was, and is, and will be, are 

but is; 
And all creation is one act at 

once. 
The birth of light: but we that 

are not all, 
310 As parts, can see but parts, now 

this, now that. 
And live, perforce, from thought 

to thought, and make 
One act a phantom of succession: 

thus 
Our weakness somehow shapes 

the shadow, Time; 
But in the shadow will we work, 

and mould 
The woman to the fuller day.' 

She spake 
With kindled eyes: we rode a 

league beyond. 
And, o'er a bridge of pinewood 

crossing, came 
On flowery levels underneath the 

crag. 
Full of all beauty. 'O how sweet,' 

I said 
320 (For I was half-oblivious of my 

mask), 
'To linger here with one that 

loved us I' 'Yea,' 
She answer'd, 'or with fair phil- 
osophies 
That lift the fancy; for indeed 

these fields 
Are lovely, lovelier not the Ely- 

sian-'' lawns. 
Where paced the Demigods of 

old, and saw 

20 Probably the Islands of the Blest. 



The soft white vapor streak the 
crowned towers 

Built to the Sun:' then, turning 
to her maids, 

'Pitch our pavilion here upon the 
sward ; 

Lay out the viands.' At the word, 
they raised 

A tent of satin, elaborately 330 , 
wrought 

With fair Corinna's-^ triumph; 
here she stood. 

Engirt with many a florid maid- 
en-cheek, 

The woman-conqueror; woman- 
conquer'd there 

The bearded Victor of ten-thou- 
sand hymns. 

And all the men mourn'd at his 
side: but we 

Set forth to climb; then, climb- 
ing. Cyril kept 

With Psyche, with Melissa Flo- 
rian, I 

With mine af^anced. Many a lit- 
tle hand 

Glanced like a touch of sunshine 
on the rocks. 

Many a light foot shone like a 34 
jewel set 

In the dark crag: and then we 
turn'd, we wound 

About the clifYs, the copses, out 
and in, 

Hammering23 and clinking, chat 
tering stony names 

Of shale and hornblende, rag and 
trap and tufif. 

Amygdaloid and trachyte, till the 
sun 

Grew broader toward his death 
and fell, and all 

The rosy heights came out above 

the lawns. , 

= 'A Grecian Poetess, who won several 

prizes over Pindar "the bearded Victor." 

CI. Diet. 

23 Gathering specimens of minerals. 



The splendor falls on castle 
walls 
And snowy summits old in 
story; 
The long light shakes across 
the lakes, 
And the wild cataract leaps 
in glory. 
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild 

echoes flying, 
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, 
dying, dying, dying. 

O hark, O hear! how thin and 
clear. 
And thinner, clearer, farther 
going! 
O sweet and far from cliff and 
scar 
The horns of Elfland faint- 
ly blowing! 
Blow, let us hear the purple glens 

replying: 
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, 
dying, dying, dying. 

O love, they die in yon rich 
sky, 
They faint on hill or field or 
river; 
Our echoes roll from soul to 
soul. 
And grow for ever and for 
ever. 
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild 

echoes flying. 
And answer, echoes, answer dy- 
ing, dying, dying. 









€I=>-e»pSf!7!?».Sj;35^ t^Si^-'i^'J^Kn^r-CS^': 



PART IV. 



,l>;iS22!2:,3spi.»iC5sJ«ci3=,'«''=Q=*^^ 



T 



HERE sinks the nebulousi 
star we call the sun, 
If that hypothesis of theirs be 

sound,' 
Said Ida; 'let us down and rest;' 

and we 
Down from the lean and wrinkled 

precipices, 
By every coppice-feather'd 

chasm and cleft, 
Dropt thro' the ambrosial gloom 

to where below 
No bigger than a glow-worm 

shone the tent 
Lamp-lit from the inner. Once 

she lean'd on me. 
Descending; once or twice she 

lent her hand, 
10 And blissful palpitations in the 

blood 
Stirring a sudden transport rose 

and fell. 

But when we planted level feet, 
and dipt 

Beneath the satin dome and en- 
ter'd in. 

There leaning deep in broider'd 
down we sank 

Our elbows; on a tripod in the 
midst 

A fragrant flame rose, and be- 
fore us glow'd 

Fruit, blossom, viand, amber 

wine, and gold.- 

1 Cf. Part II ; lines 101-104. 

» Probably referring to the golden gob- 
lets and table service. 



Then she, 'Let SDme one sing 

to us; lightlier move 
The minutes fledged with music:' 

and a maid, 
Of those beside her, smote her 20 

harp and sang. 

Tears, 3 idle tears, I know not what 

they mean. 
Tears from the depth of some divine 

despair 
Rise in the heart, and gather to the 

eyes, 
In looking on the happy autumn-fields, 
And thinking of the days that are no 

more. 

Fresh as the first beam glittering on 

a sail, 
That brings our friends up from the 

underworld, 
Sad as the last which reddens over one 
That sinks with all we love below the 

verge ; 
So sad, so fresh, the days that are no 3° 

more. 

Ah, sad and strange as in dark sum- 
mer dawns 

The earliest pipe of half-awaken'd 
birds 

To dying ears, when unto dying eyes 

The casement slowly grows a glimmer- 
ing square ; 

So sad, so strange, the days that are no 
more. 

Dear as remember'd kisses after 

death, 
And sweet as tho.se by hopeless fancy 

feign'd 
On lips that are for others ; deep as love. 
Deep as first love, and wild with all 

regret ; 
O Death in Life, the days that are no '*" 

more. 

She ended with such passion 
that the tear 

a Tears, idle tears, etc. See Dawson. 



PART IV. 



47 



She sang of shook and fell, an 

erring^ pearl 
Lost in her bosom: but with some 

disdain 
Answer'd the Princess, 'If indeed 

there haunt 
About the moulder'd lodges of the 

past 
So sweet a voice and vague, fatal 

to men. 
Well needs it we should cram our 

ears with wool 
And so pace by: but thine are 

fancies hatch'd 
In silken-folded idleness ;^nor is it 
50 Wiser to weep a true occasion 

lost, 
But trim our sails, and let old by- 
gones be. 
While down the streams that float 

us each and all 
To the issue, goes, like glittering 

bergs of ice. 
Throne after throne, and molten 

on the waste 
Becomes a cloud: for all things 

serve their time 
Toward that great year of equal 

mights and rights. 
Nor would I fight with iron laws, 

in the end 
Found golden: let the past be 

past: let be 
Their cancell'd Babels: tho' the 

rough kex^ break 
The starr'd mosaic, and the 
60 beard-blown goat 

Hang on the shaft, and the wild 

fig-tree split 
Their monstrous idols, care not 

while we hear 
A trumpet in the distance pealing 

news 

• Wandering. 

5 Wild vegetation growing in the 
mosaic pavement. 



Of better, and Hope, a poising 

eagle, burns 
Above the unrisen morrow:' then 

to me, 
'Know you no song of your own 

land,' she said, 
'Not such as moans about the 

retrospect. 
But deals with the other distance 

and the hues 
Of promise; not a death's-head*' 

at the wine?' 

Then I remember'd one myself 70 
had made. 

What time I watch'd the swallow 
winging south 

From mine own land, part made 
long since, and part 

Now while I sang, and maiden- 
like as far 

As I could ape their treble did I 
sing. 

O Swallow, Swallow, flying, flj'ing 

south, 
Fly to her, and fall upon her gilded 

eaves. 
And tell her, tell her, what I tell to 

thee. 

O tell her, Swallow, thou that know- 

est each. 
That bright and fierce and fickle is the 

South, 
And dark and true and tender is the ro 

North. 

O Swallow, Swallow, if I could follow, 

and light 
Upon her lattice, I would pipe and 

trill, 
And cheep and twitter twenty million 

loves. 

O were I thou that she might take me 

in, 
And lay me on her bosom, and her 

heart 
Would rock the snowy cradle till I died. 

6 According to Herodotus, at the Egypt- 
ian banquets it was the custom to carry 
around to each person an image of a dead 
bodj- with an injunction to enjoy the 
feast, as, when dead, he would be lik€the 
image. 



48 



THE PRINCESS. 



Why lingereth she to clothe her heart 
with love, 
Delaying as the tender ash delays 
To clothe herself, when all the woods 
are green ? 

O tell her, Swallow, that thy brood is 
flown ; 
Sav to her, I do but wanton in the 

' South, 
But in the North long since my nest is 
made. 

O tell her, brief is life but love is long. 
And brief the sun of summer in the 

North, 
And brief the moon of beauty in the" 

South. 

O Swallow, flying from the golden 
woods, 
Fly to her, and pipe and woo her, and 

make her mine. 
And tell her, tell her, that I follow thee. 

I ceased, and all the ladies, each 

at each, 
Like the Ithacensian^ suitors in 

old time, 
Stared with great eyes, and 

laugh'd with alien lips. 
And knew not what they meant; 

for still my voice 
Rang false: but smiling, 'Not for 

thee,' she said, 
'O Btilbul*, any rose of Gulistan 
Shall burst her veil; marsh-div- 
ers, rather, maid. 
Shall croak thee sister, or the 

meadow-crake 
Grate her harsh kindred in the 

grass: and this 
A mere love-poem! O for such, 

my friend. 
We hold them slight; they mind^ 

us of the time 

7 Referring to the return of Ulysses, to 
Ithaca, when his wife's suitors laugh in 
an unnatural way : the Greek expres- 
sion is ' laughed with other men's jaws.' 

8 A Persian word which means in Eng- 
lish, the nightingale. 

3 Remind. 



When we made bricks in Egypt, no 
Knaves are men. 

That lute and flute fantastic ten- 
derness. 

And dress the victim to the offer- 
ing up, 

And paint the gates of Hell with 
Paradise, 

And play the slave to gain the 
tyranny. 

Poor soul! I had a maid of honor 
once; 

She wept her true eyes blind for 
such a one, 

A rogue of canzonets and sere- 
nades. 

I loved her. Peace be with her. 
She is dead. 

So they blaspheme the muse! But 
great is song 

Used to great ends: ourself have jjg 
often tried 

Valkyrian^'^ hymns, or into rhythm 
have dash'd 

The passion of the prophetess; 
for song 

Is duer unto freedom, force and 
growth 

Of spirit, than to junketing and 

love. 
Love is it? Would this same 

mock-love, and this 
Mock-Hymen were laid up like 

winter bats, 
Till all men grew to rate us at our 

worth. 
Not vassals to be beat, nor pretty 

babes 
To be dandled, no, but living 

wills, and sphered 
Whole in ourselves and owed to 13c 

none. Enough! 
But now to leaven play with prof- 
it, you, 

"=Sung by the Valkyrs, of the Norse 
Mythology, who carried slain heroes to 
Valhalla. 



PART IV. 



49 



Know you no song, the true 

growth of your soil, 
That gives the manners of your 

countrywomen?' 

She spoke and turn'd her sump- 
tuous head with eyes 

Of shining expectation fixt on 
mine. 

Then while I dragg'd my brains 
for such a song, 

Cyril, with whom the bell- 
mouth'd glass had wrought, 

Or master'd by the sense of sport, 
began 

To troll a careless, careless^^ tav- 
ern-catch 
:4o Of Moll and Meg, and strange ex- 
periences 

Unmeet for ladies. Florian nod- 
ded at him, 

I frowning; Psyche flush'd and 
wann'd and shook; 

The lilylike Melissa droop'd her 
brows; 

'Forbear,' the Princess cried; 
'Forbear, Sir,' I; 

And heated thro' and thro' with 
wrath and love, 

I smote him on the breast; he 
started up; 

There rose a shriek as of a city 
sack'd; 

Melissa clamor'd, 'Flee the 
death;' 'To horse!' 

Said Ida; 'home! to horse!' and 
fled, as flies 
150 A troop of snowy doves athwart 
^ the dusk. 

When some one batters at the 
dovecote doors. 

Disorderly the women. Alone I 
stood 

With Florian, cursing Cyril, vext 
at heart, 

" The repetition gives emphasis. 



In the pavilion: there like parting 

hopes 
I heard them passing from me: 

hoof by hoof. 
And every hoof a knell to my de- 
sires, 
Clang'd on the bridge; and then 

another shriek. 
'The Head, the Head, the Prin- 
cess, O the Head!' 
For blind with rage she miss'd 

the plank, and roll'd 
In the river. Out I sprang from j^ 

glow to gloom: 
There whirl'd her white robe like 

a blossom'd branch 
Rapt to the horrible fall: a glance 

I gave. 
No more; but woman-vested as 

I was 
Plunged; and the flood drew; yet 

I caught her; then 
Oaring one arm, and bearing in 

my left 
The weight of all the hopesi- of 

half the world. 
Strove to bufifet to land in vain. 

A tree 
W^as half-disrooted from his place 

and stoop'd 
To drench his dark locks in the 

gurgling wave 
Mid-channel. Right on this we 

drove and caught, 
And grasping down the boughs I 

gain'd the shore. 

There stood her maidens glim- 
meringly group'd 

In the hollow bank. One reach- 
ing forward drew 

My burthen from mine arms; they 
cried, 'She lives:' 

They bore her back into the tent: 
but I, 

'2 Note the combined irony and com- 
passionate kindness. 



50 



THE PRINCESS. 



So much a kind of shame within 

me wrought, 
Not yet endured to meet her open- 
ing eyes, 
Nor found my friends; but push'd 

alone on foot 
(For since her horse was lost I 

left her mine) 
iSo Across the woods, and less from 

Indian craft 
Than beelike instinct hiveward, 

found at length 
The garden portals. Two great 

statues, Art 
And Science, Caryatids, lifted up 
A weight of emblem, and betwixt 

were valves 
Of open-work in which the hun- 

ter^^ rued 
His rash intrusion, manlike, but 

his brows 
Had sprouted, and the branches 

thereupon 
Spread out at top, and grimly 

spiked the gates. 

A little space was left between 

the horns, 
jgo Thro' which I clamber'd o'er at 

top with pain, 
Dropt on the sward, and up the 

linden walks. 
And, tost on thoughts that 

changed from hue to hue. 
Now poring on the glowworm, 

now the star, 
I paced the terrace, till the Bear 

had wheel'd 
Thro' a great arc his seven slow 

suns. 

A step 
Of lightest echo, then a loftier 

form 
Than female, moving thro' the 

uncertain gloom, 

'3See Cl. Diet, .\ctseon. 



Disturb'd me with the doubt 'if 

this were she,' , 

But it was Florian. 'Hist, O 

hist!' he said, 
'They seek us; out so late is out 200 

of rules. 
Moreover, "Seize the strangers'" 

is the cry. 
How came you here?' I told 

him: 'I,' said he, 
'Last of the train, a moraP* leper, 

I, 
To whom none spake, half-sick at 

heart, return'd. 
Arriving all confused among the 

rest 
With hooded brows I crept into 

the hall. 
And, couch'd behind a Judith, i"' 

underneath 
The head of Holofernes peep'd 

and saw. 
Girl after girl was call'd to trial: 

each 
Disclaim'd all knowledge of us: aic 

last of all, 
Melissa: trust me. Sir, I pitied 

her. 
She, question'd if she knew us^'^ 

men, at first 
Was silent; closer prest, denied 

it not: 
And then, demanded if her moth- 
er knew. 
Or Psyche, she affirm'd not, or 

denied: 
From whence the Royal mind, 

familiar with her. 
Easily gather'd either guilt. She 

sent 

'* Florian, himself blameless, and anx- 
ious for Pysche and Melissa has a tragic 
sense of the situation. 

15 Rd. Hb., also the Apocryphal book of 
Judith. 

'6 To be men. 



PART IV. 



51 



For Psyche, but she was not 

there; she call'd 
For Psyche's child to cast it from 

the doors; 
220 She sent for Blanche to accuse her 

face to face; 
And I slipt out: but whither will 

you now? 
And where are Psyche, Cyril? 

both are fled: 
What, if together? that were not 

so well. 
Would rather we had never come! 

I dread 
His wildness. and the chances of 

the dark.' 

'And yet.' I said, 'you wrong 
him more than I 

That struck him: this is proper 
to the clown, 

Tho' smock'd, or furr'd and pur- 
pled, still the clown. 

To harm the thing that trusts 
him, and to shame 
230 That which he says he loves: for 
Cyril, howe'er 

He deal in frolic, as to-night — 
the song 

Might have been worse and sinn'd 
in grosser lips 

Beyond all pardon — as it is, I hold 

These flashes on the surface are 
not he. 

He has a solid base of tempera- 
ment; 

But as the water-lily starts and 
slides 

Upon the level in little pufYs of 
wind. 

Tho' anchor'd to the bottom, 
such is he.' 

Scarce had I ceased when fiom 
a tamarisk near 



Two Proctors leapt upon us. cry- 240 

ing. 'Names:' 
He, standing still, was clutch'd; 

but I began 
To thrid^" the musky-circled maz- 
es, wind 
And double in and out the boles, 

and race 
By all the fountains: fleet I was 

of foot: 
Before me shower'd the rose in 

flakes; behind 
I heard the pufT'd pursuer; at 

mine ear 
Bubbled the nightingale and 

heeded not. 
And secret laughter tickled all my 

soul. 
At last I hook'd my ankle in a 

vine. 
That claspt the feet of a Alne- 250 

mosyne. 
And falling on my face was 

caught and known. 

They haled us to the Princess 

where she sat 
High m the hall: above her 

droop'd a lamp. 
And made the single jewel on her 

brow 
Burn like the mystic^s fire on a 

mast-head, 
Prophet of storm: a handmaid on 

each side 
Bow'd toward her. combing out 

her long black hair 
Damp from the river; and close 

behind her stood 
Eight daughters of the .plough. 

stronger than men, 
Huge women blowzed with 260 

health, and wind, and rain, 

''Cf. Dream of Fair Women, 51; and 
In Mem., 97. 

'8Cf. Longfellow Golden Legend, Part 
V, at Sea. 



52 



THE PRINCESS. 



And labor. Each was like a 

Druid rock; 
Or like a spire of land that stands 

apart 
Cleft from the main, and vvail'd 

about with mews. 

Then, as we came, the crowd di- 
viding clove 

An advent to the throne: and 
therebeside. 

Half-naked as if caught at once 
from bed 

xA.nd tumbled on the purple foot- 
cloth, lay 

The lily-shining child; and on the 
left, 

Bow'd on her palms and folded 
up from wrong, 
70 Her round white shoulder shaken 
with her sobs, 

Melissa knelt; but Lady Blanche 
erect 

Stood up and spake, an affluent 
orator. 

Tt was not thus, O Princess, in 
old days: 

You prized my counsel, lived up- 
on my lips: 

I led you then to all the Castalies; 

I fed you with the milk of every 
Muse; 

I loved you like this kneeler, and 
you me 

Your second mother: those were 
gracious times. 

Then came your new friend: you 
began to change — 
280 I saw it and grieved — to slacken 
and to cool; 

Till taken with her seeming open- 
ness 

You turn'd your warmer currents 
all to her 



To me you froze: this was my 
meed for all. 

Yet I bore up in part from an- 
cient love. 

And partly that I hoped to win 
you back. 

And partly conscious of my own 
deserts. 

And partly that you were my civil 
head. 

And chiefly you were born for 
something great. 

In which I might your fellow- 
worker be, 

When time should serve; and 29 
thus a noble scheme 

Grew up from seed we two long 
since had sown; 

In us true growth, in her a Jo- 
nah's gourd, 

Up in one night and due to sud- 
den sun : 

We took this palace; but even 
from the first 

You stood in your own light and 
darken'd mine. 

What student came but that you 
planed her path 

To Lady Psyche, younger, not so 
wise, 

A foreigner, and I your country- 
woman, 

I your old friend and tried, she 
new in all? 

But still her lists were swell'd and 300 
mine were lean; 

Yet I bore up in hope she would 
be known: 

Then came these wolves: they 
knew her: they endured, 

Long-closeted with her the yes- 
termorn. 

To tell her what they were, and 
she to hear: 

And me none told: not less to an 
eye like mine, 



PART IV. 



53 



A Hdless watcher of the pubhc 

weal. 
Last night, their mask was patent, 

and my foot 
Was to you: but I thought again: 

I fear'd 
To meet a cold "We thank you, 

we shall hear of it 
310 From Lady Psyche:" you had 

gone to her, 
She told, perforce; and winning 

easy grace, 
No doubt, for slight delay, re- 

main'd among us 
In our young nursery still un- 
known, the stem 
Less grain than touchwood, while 

my honest heat 
Were all miscounted as malignant 

haste 
To push my rival out of place and 

power. 
But public use required she should 

be known; 
And since my oath was ta'en for 

public use, 
I broke the letter of it to keep the 

sense. 
320 I spoke not then at first, but 

watch'd them well. 
Saw that they kept apart, no mis- 
chief done; 
And yet this day (tho' you should 

hate me for it) 
I came to tell you; found that you 

had gone, 
Ridden to the hills, she likewise: 

now, I thought, 
* That surely she will speak; if not, 

then I: 
Did she? These monsters blaz- 

on'd what they were, 
According to the coarseness of 

their kind. 
For thus I hear; and known at 

last (my work) 



And full of cowardice and guilty 

shame — 
I grant in her some sense of 33c 

shame — she flies; 
And I remain on whom to wreak 

your rage, 
L that have lent my life to build 

up yours, 
L that have wasted here health, 

wealth, and time. 
And talent, I — you know it — I will 

not boast: 
Dismiss me, and I prophesy your 

plan, 
Divorced from my experience, 

will be chafif 
For every gust of chance, and 

men will say 
We did not know the real light, 

but chased 
The wisp that flickers where no 

foot can tread.' 

She ceased: the Princess an- 34c 

swer'd coldly, 'Good: 
Your oath is broken: we dismiss 

you: go. 
For this lost lamb' (she pointed 

to the child), 
'Our mind is changed; we take it 

to ourself.' 

Thereat the Lady stretch'd a 

vulture throat. 
And shot from crooked lips a 

haggard smile. 
'The plan was mine. I built the 

nest,' she said, 
'To hatch the cuckoo. Rise!' and 

stoop'd to updrag 
Melissa: she, half on her mother 

propt. 
Half-drooping from her, turn'd 

her face, and cast 
A liquid look on Ida, full of 35( 

prayer. 



54 



THE PRINCESS. 



Which mehed Florian's fancy as 

she hung, 
A Niobeani'' daughter, one arm 

out, 
Appeahng to the bolts of Heaven; 

and while 
We gazed upon her came a Httle 

stir 
About the doors, and on a sudden 

rush'd 
Among us, out of breath, as one 

pursued, 
A woman-post in flying raiment. 

Fear 
Stared in her eyes, and chalk'd 

her face, and wing'd 
Her transit to the throne, where- 
by she fell 
X) Delivering seal'd dispatcheswhich 

the Head 
Took half-amazed, and in her 

lion's mood 
Tore open, silent we with blind 

surmise 
Regarding, while she read, till 

over brow 
And cheek and bosom brake the 

wrathful bloom 
As of some fire against a stormy 

cloud, 
When the wild peasant rights 

himself, the rick 
Flames, and his anger reddens in 

the heavens; 
For anger most it seem'd. while 

now her breast. 
Beaten with some great passion 

at her heart, 
70 Palpitated, her hand shook, and 

we heard 
In the dead hush the papers that 

she held 
Rustle: at once the lost lamb at 

her feet 
Sent out a bitter bleating for its 

dam; 
'9C1. Diet. 



The plaintive cry jarr'd on her 
ire; she crush'd 

The scrolls together, made a sud- 
den turn 

As if to speak, but, utterance fail- 
ing her. 

She whirl'd them on to me, as 
who should say 

'Read,' and I read — two letters — 
one her sire's: 

'Fair daughter, when we sent 
the Prince your way 

We knew not your ungracious 380 
laws, which learnt. 

We, conscious of what temper you 
are built, 

Came all in haste to hinder wrong, 
but fell 

Into his father's hand, who has 
this night. 

You lying close upon his terri- 
tory, 

Slipt round and in the dark in- 
vested you. 

And here he keeps me hostage for 
his son.' 

The second was my father's 

running thus: 
'You have our son: touch not a 

hair of his head: 
Render him up unscathed: give 

him your hand: 
Cleave to your contract: tho' in- 390 

deed we hear 
You hold the woman is the better 

man: 
A rampant heresy, such as if it 

spread 
Would make all women kick 

against their lords 
Thro' all the world, amd which 

might well deserve 
That we this night should pluck 

your palace down; 



PART IV. 



55 



And we will do it, unless you send 
us back 

Our son, on the instant, whole.' 
So far I read; 

And then stood up and spoke im- 
petuously: 

'O not to pry and peer on your 

reserve, 
;4oo But led by golden wishes, and a 

hope 
The child of regal-'' compact, did 

I break 
Your precinct; not a scorner of 

your sex 
But venerator, zealous it should 

be 
All that it might be: hear me, for 

I bear, 
Tho' man, yet human, whatsoe'er 

your wrongs, 
From the flaxen curl to the gray 

lock a life 
Less mine than yours: my nurse 

would tell me of you; 
I babbled for you, as babies for 

the moon. 
Vague brightness; when a boy, 

you stoop'd to me 
410 From all high places, lived in all 

fair lights, 
Came in long breezes rapt from 

inmost south 
And blown to inmost north; at 

eve and dawn 
With Ida, Ida, Ida, rang the 

woods; 
The leader wild-swan in among 

the stars 
Would clang it, and lapt in 

wreaths of glowworm light 
The mellow breaker murmur'd 
* Ida. Now, 

«»An agreement between kings was 
considered peculiarly sacred because of 
the old theory of the divine right to rule. 



Because I would have reach'd 

j'ou, had you been 
Sphered up with Cassiopeia,2i or 

the enthroned 
Persephone in Hades, now at 

length, 
Those winters of abeyance all 420 

worn out; 
A man I came to see you: but, 

indeed. 
Not in this frequence can I lend 

full tongue, 

noble Ida, to those thoughts 

that wait 

On you, their centre: let me say 
but this. 

That many a famous man and 
woman, town 

And landskip22 have I heard of, 
after seen 

The dwarfs of presage: tho' when 
known, there grew 

Another kind of beauty in detail 

]\Iade them worth knowing; but 
in you I found 

My boyish dream involved and 430 
dazzled down 

And master'd, while that after- 
beauty makes 

Such head from act to act, from 
hour to hour, 

Within me, that except you slay 
me here. 

According to your bitter statute- 
book, 

1 cannot cease to follow you, as 

they say 

The seal does music; who desire 
you more 

Than growing boys their man- 
hood; dying lips, 

With many thousand matters left 
to do, 

2' Placed in the starry firmament 

or down in Hades. See CI. Diet, under 
Cassiopeia and Persephone. 

»« Wb. 



56 



THE PRINCESS. 



The breath of life: O more than 

poor men wealth, 
440 Than sick men health — yours, 

yours, not mine — but half 
Without you; with you, whole: 

and of those halves 
You worthiest; and howe'er you 

block and bar 
Your heart with system out from 

mine, I hold 
That it becomes no man to nurse 

despair. 
But in the teeth of clench'd an- 
tagonisms 
To follow up the worthiest till he 

die: 
Yet that I came not all unauthor- 
ized 
Behold your father's letter.' 

On one knee 
Kneeling, I gave it, which she 

caught, and dash'd 
450 Unopen'd at her feet: a tide of 

fierce 
Invective seem'd to wait behind 

her lips. 
As waits a river level with the 

dam 
Ready to burst and flood the 

world with foam: 
And so she would have spoken, 

but there rose 
A hubbub in the court of half the 

maids 
Gather'd together: from the il- 
lumined-^^ hall 
Long lanes of splendor slanted 

o'er a press 
Of snowy shoulders, thick as 

herded ewes. 
And rainbow robes, and gems and 

gemlike eyes, 
460 And gold and golden heads; they 

to and fro 

23 It is late in the night and the greater 
number of the girls are in the quadrangle 
which is lighted from the hall windows. 



Fluctuated, as flowers in storm, 

some red, some pale. 
All open-mouth'd, all gazing to 

the light. 
Some crying there was an army in 

the land, 
And some that men were in the 

very walls. 
And some they cared not; till a * 

clamor grew 
As of a new-world Babel, woman- 
built, 
And worse-confounded: high 

above them stood 
The placid marble Muses, looking 

peace. 

Not peace she look'd, the Head: 

but rising up 
Robed in the long night of her 470 

deep hair, so 
To the open window moved, re- 
maining there 
Fixt like a beacon-tower above 

the waves 
Of tempest, when the crimson- 

rolling--t eye 
Glares ruin, and the wild birds on 

the light 
Dash themselves dead. She 

stretch'd her arms and call'd 
Across the tumult, and the tumult 

fell. 

'What fear ye, brawlers? am not 

I your Head? 
On me, me, me, the storm first 

breaks: I dare 
All these male thunderbolts: what 

is it ye fear? 
Peace! there are those^^ to 480 

avenge us and they come: 

2* Many lighthouses having revolving 
red lights. 

25 The brothers of the Princess. 



PART IV. 



57 



If not, — myself were like enough, 

O girls, 
To unfurl the maiden banner of 

our rights, 
And clad in iron burst the ranks 

of war. 
Or, falling, protomartyr of our 

cause, 
Die: yet I blame you not so much 

for fear; 
Six thousand years of fear have 

made you that 
From which I would redeem you : 

but for those 
That stir this hubbub — you and 

you — I know 
Your faces there in the crowd — 

to-morrow morn 
490 We hold a great convention: then 

shall they 
That love their voices more than 

duty, learn 
With whom they deal, dismiss'd 

in shame to live 
No wiser than their mothers, 

household stufif, 
Live chattels, mincers of each 

other's fame, 
Full of weak poison, turnspits for 

the clown. 
The drunkard's football, laughing- 
stocks of Time, 
Whose brains are in their hands 

and in their heels. 
But fit to flaunt, to dress, to dance, 

to thrum. 
To tramp, to scream, to burnish, 

and to scour, 
500 For ever slaves at home and fools 
\ abroad.' 

She, ending, waved her hands; 

thereat the crowd 
Muttering, dissolved: then with 

a smile, that look'd 
A stroke of cruel sunshine on the 

dm, 



When all the glens are drown'd 

in azure gloom 
Of thunder-shower, she floated to 

us and said: 

'You have done well and like a 

gentleman. 
And like a prince: you have our 

thanks for all: 
And you look well too in your 

woman's dress: 
Well have you done and like a 

gentleman. 
You saved our life: we owe you 510 

bitter thanks: 
Better have died and spilt our 

bones in the flood — 
Then men had said — but now — 

What hinders me 
To take such bloody vengeance 

on you both? — 
Yet since our father — Wasps in 

our good hive. 
You would-be quenchers of the 

light to be. 
Barbarians, grosser than your na- 
tive bears — 

would I had his sceptre for one 

hour! 
You that have dared to break our 

bound, and gull'd 
Our servants, wrong'd and lied 

and thwarted us — 

1 wed with thee! I bound by pre- 520 

contract 
Your bride, your bondslave! not 

tho' all the gold 
That veins the world were pack'd 

to make your crown. 
And every spoken tongue should 

lord-6 you. Sir, 
Your falsehood and yourself are 

hateful to us: 
I trample on your offers and on 

you: 

26 Call you lord. 



58 



THE PRINCESS. 



Begone: we will not look upon 

you more. 
Here, push them out at gates.' 

In wrath she spake. 
Then those eight mighty -daugh- 
ters of the plough 
Bent their broad faces toward us 

and address'd 
Their motion: twice I sought to 

plead my cause, 
But on my shoulder hung their 

heavy hands. 
The weight of destiny: so from 

her face 
They push'd us, down the steps, 

and thro' the court. 
And with grim laughter thrust us 

out at gates. 

We cross'd the street and gain'd 

a petty mound 
Beyond it. whence we saw the 

lights and heard 
The voices murmuring. While I 

listen'd, came 
On a sudden the weird seizure and 

the doubt: 
I seem'd to move among a world 

of ghosts; 



The Princess with her monstrous 54° 

woman-guard, 
The jest and earnest working side 

by side. 
The cataract and the tumult and 

the kings 
Were shadows; and the long fan- 
tastic night 
With all its doings had and had 

not been, 
And all things were and were not. 
This went by 
As strangely as it came, and on 

my spirits 
Settled a gentle cloud of melan- 
choly; 
Not long; I shook it off; for spite 

of doubts 
And sudden ghostly shadowings 

I was one 
To whom the touch of all mis- 550 

chance but came 
As night to him that sitting on a 

hill 
Sees the midsummer, midnight, 

Norway sun 
Set into sunrise; then we moved 

away. 




^=9 



PART IV. 



59 



Thy voice is heard thro' rolling drums, 

That beat to battle where he stands ; 
Thy face across his fancy comes, 

And gives the battle to his hands : 
A moment, while the trumpets blow. 

He sees his brood about thy knee ; 
And next, like fire he meets the foe. 

And strikes him dead for thine and 
thee. 

So Lilia sang: we thought her 

half-possess'd, 
She struck such warbling fury 

thro' the words; 
And, after, feigning pique at what 

she call'd 
The raillery, or grotesque, or false 

sublime — 
Like one that wishes at a dance 

to change 
The music — clapt her hands and 

cried for war. 
Or some grand fight to kill and 

make an end: 
And he that next inherited the 

■tale, 
Half turning to the broken statue, 

said, 
'Sir Ralph has got your colors; 

if I prove 
Your knight, and fight your bat- 
tle, what for me?' 
It chanced, her empty glove upon 

the tomb 
Lay by her like a model of her 

hand. 
She took it and she flung it. 

'Fight,' she said, 
'And make us all we would be, 

great and good.' 
He knightlike in his cap instead 

of casque, 
A cap of Tyrol borrow'd from the 

hall, 
Arranged the favor, and assumed 

the Prince. 




»€lo-<.pc3vT?»45?cS^ rv^^-st^T^ra^i-cs^": 



PART V. 



»Tv:222!i*'S?=s-iC5i? c.xii,'^?=£3=£5>rtf 



NOW, scarce three paces meas- 
ured from the mound, 
We stumbled on a stationary^ 

voice, 
And 'Stand, who goes?' 'Two 

from the palace,' I. 
'The second two: they wait,' he 

said, 'pass on; 
His Highness wakes:' and one, 

that clash'd in arms, 
By glimmering lanes and walls 

of canvas led 
Threading the soldier-city, till we 

heard 
The drowsy folds of our great en- 
sign shake 
From blazon'd lions o'er the im- 
perial tent 
,Q Whispers of war. 

Entering, the sudden light 
Dazed me half-blind: I stood and 

seem'd to hear. 
As in a poplar grove when a light 

wind wakes 
A lisping of the innumerous- leaf 

and dies. 
Each hissing in his neighbor's 

ear; and then 
A strangled titter, out of which 

there brake 
On all sides, clamoring etiquette 

to death. 
Unmeasured mirth; while now 

the two old kings 
Began to wag their baldness up 
and down, 

' A sentinel. 

« Cf. Part III, line io6. 



The fresh young captains flash'd 

their glittering teeth. 
The huge bush-bearded barons 

heaved and blew. 
And slain with laughter roll'd the 

gilded squire. 

At length my sire, his rough 

cheek wet with tears. 
Panted from weary sides, 'King, 

you are free ! 
We did but keep you surety for 

our son, 
If this be he, — or a draggled raaw- 

kin,'^ thou, 
That tends her bristled grunters 

in the sludge;' 
For I was drench'd with ooze, 

and torn with briers. 
More crumpled than a poppy from 

the sheath. 
And all one rag, disprinced from 

head to heel. 
Then some one sent beneath his 

vaulted palm 
A whisper'd jest to some one near 

him, 'Look, 
He has been among his shadows.' 

'Satan take 
The old women and their shad- 
ows!' — thus the King 
Roar'd — 'make yourself a man to 

fight with men. 
Go: Cyril told us all.' 

As boys that slink 
From ferule and the trespass- 
chiding eye, 

sWb. Malkin ; Cf. Cor. II, 1:224. 



PART V. 



6i 



Away we stole, and transient in a 

trice 
From what was left of faded wo- 
man-slough 
To sheathing splendors and the 

golden scale 
Of harness, issued in the sun, that 

now 
Leapt from the dewy shoulders of 

the Earth, 
And hit the Northern hills. Here 

Cyril met us, 
A little shy at first, but by and by 
We twain, with mutual pardon 

ask'd and given 
For stroke and song, resolder'd 

peace, whereon 
Follow'd his tale. Amazed he 

fled away 
Thro' the dark land, and later in 

the night 
Had come on Psyche weeping: 

'then we fell 
Into your father's hand, and there 

she lies, 
But will not speak nor stir.' 

He show'd a tent 
A stone-shot off: we enter'd in, 

and there 
Among piled arms and rough ac- 
coutrements, 
Pitiful sight, wrapp'd in a sol- 
dier's cloak. 
Like some sweet sculpture draped 

from head to foot. 
And push'd by rude hands from 

its pedestal. 
All her fair length upon the 

ground she lay; 
And at her head a follower of the 

camp, 
A charr'd and wrinkled piece of 

womanhood. 
Sat watching like a watcher by 

the dead. 



Then Florian knelt, and 'Come,' 60 

he whisper'd to her, 
'Lift up your head, sweet sister: 

ke not thus. 
What have you done but right? 

you could not slay 
Me, nor your prince: look up: be 

comforted: 
Sweet is it to have done the thing 

one ought, 
When fallen in darker ways.' 

And likewise I : 
'Be comforted: have I not lost 

her too, 
In whose least act abides the 

nameless charm 
That none has else for me?' She 

heard, she moved, 
She moan'd, a folded voice; and 

up she sat. 
And raised the cloak from brows 70 

as pale and smooth 
As those that mourn half-shroud- 
ed over death 
In deathless marble. 'Her,' she 

said, 'my friend — 
Parted from her — betray'd her 

cause and mine — 
Where shall I breathe? why kept 

ye not* your faith? 
O base and bad! what comfort? 

none for me!' 
To whom remorseful Cyril, 'Yet 

I pray 
Take comfort: live, dear lady, for 

your child!' 
At which she lifted up her voice 

and cried. 

'Ah me, my babe, my blossom, 

ah, my child. 
My one sweet child, whom I shall 80 

see no more! 
For now will cruel Ida keep her 

back; 

♦ See Part II, lines 275-280. 



62 



THE PRINCESS. 



And either she will die from want 

of care. 
Or sicken with ill-usage, when 

they say • 

The child is hers — for every little 

fault. 
The child is hers; and they will 

beat my girl 
Remembering her mother: O my 

fiower! 
Or they will take her, they will 

make her hard, 
And she will pass me by in after- 
life 
With some cold reverence worse 

than were she dead. 
90 III mother that I was to leave her 

there. 
To lag behind, scared by the cry 

they made, 
The horror of the shame among 

them all: 
But I will go and sit beside the 

• doors. 
And make a wild petition night 

and day, 
Until they hate to hear me like a 

wind 
Wailing for ever, till they open 

to me. 
And lay my little blossom at my 

feet, 
My babe, my sweet Aglai'a, my 

one child; 
And I will take her up and go my 

way, 
]oo And satisfy my soul with kissing 

her: 
Ah! what might that man not de- 
deserve of me 
Who gave me back my child?' 

'Be comforted,' 
Said Cyril, 'you shall have it;' 

but again 
She veil'd her brows, and prone 

she sank, and so, 



Like tender things that being 

caught feign death, 
Spoke not, nor stirr'd. 

By this a murmur ran 
Thro' all the camp, and inward 

raced the scouts 
With rumor of Prince Arac hard 

at hand. 
We left her by the woman, and 

without 
Found the gray kings at parle:-' no 

and 'Look you,' cried 
My father, 'that our compact be 

fulfill'd: 
You have spoilt this child; she 

laughs at you and man: 
She wrongs herself, her sex, and 

me, and him: 
But red-faced war has rods of steel 

and fire; 
She yields, or war.' 

Then Gama turn'd to me: 
'We fear, indeed, you spent a 

stormy time 
With our strange girl; and yet 

they say that still 
You love her. Give us, then, your 

mind at large: 
How say you, war or not?' 

'Not war, if possible, 
O king,' I said, 'lest from the 120 

abuse of war. 
The desecrated shrine, the tram- 
pled year, 
The smouldering homestead, and 

the household flower 
Torn from the lintel — all the 

common wrong — 
A smoke go up thro' which I 

loom to her 
Three times a monster: now she 

lightens scorn 
At him that mars her plan, but 

then would hate >\ 

(And every voice she talk'd with 

ratify it, 

5 In conference. 



PART V. 



63 



And every face she look'd on jus- 
tify it) 

The general foe. More soluble 
is this knot 
130 By gentleness than war. I want 
her love. 

What were I nigher this altho' we 
dash'd 

Your cities into shards with cata- 
pults? 

She would not love; — or brought 
her chain'd, a slave, 

The lifting of whose eyelash is 
mj' lord? 

Not ever would she love, but 
brooding turn 

The book of scorn, till all my flit- 
ting chance 

Were caught within the record 
of her wrongs 

And crush'd to death: and rath- 
er, Sire, than this 

I would the old God of war him- 
self were dead, 
140 Forgotten, rusting on his iron 
hills. 

Rotting on some wild shore with 
ribs of wreck. 

Or like an old-world mammoth 
bulk'd in ice. 

Not to be molten out.' 

And roughly spake 

My father, 'Tut, you know them 
not, the girls. 

Boy, when I hear you prate I al- 
most think 

That idiot" legend credible. Look 
you. Sir! 

Man is the hunter; woman is his 
game: 

The sleek and shining creatures 
of the chase. 

We hunt them for the beauty of 
their skins; 
150 They love us for it, and we ride 
them down. 

<• See Part I, lines 5-10. 



Wheedling and siding with them! 

Out! for shame! 
Boy, there's no rose that's half so 

dear to them 
As he that does the thing they 

dare not do, 
Breathing and sounding beaute- 
ous battle, comes 
With the air of the trumpet round 

him, and leaps in 
Among the women, snares them 

by the score 
Platter'd and fluster'd, wins, tho' 

dash'd with death 
He reddens what he kisses: thus 

I won 
Your mother, a good mother, a 

good wife, 
Worth winning; but this fire- 160 

brand — gentleness 
To such as her! if Cyril spake 

her true. 
To catch a dragon in a cherry^ 

net. 
To trip a tigress with a gossamer, 
Were wisdom to it.' 

'Yea, but. Sire,' I cried, 
'Wild natures need wise curbs. 

The soldier? No: 
What dares not Ida do that she 

should prize 
The soldier? I beheld her, when 

she rose 
The yesternight, and storming in 

extremes 
Stood for her cause, and flung de- 
fiance down 
Gagelike to man, and had not 170 

shunn'd the death. 
No, not the soldier's; yet I hold 

her, king. 
True woman: but you clash them 

all in one. 
That have as many difYerences as 

we. 

' Fruit trees were often protected from 
birds by light nets. 



64 



THE PRINCESS. 



The violet varies from the lily as 

far 
As oak from elm: one loves the 

soldier, one 
The silken priest of peace, one 

this, one that, 
And some unworthily; their sin- 
less faith, 
A maiden moon that sparkles on 

a sty, 
Glorifying clov^^n and satyr; 

whence they need 
i8o More breadth of culture: is not 

Ida right? 
They worth it? truer to the law 

within ? 
Severer in the logic of a life? 
Twice as magnetic to sweet influ- 
ences 
Of earth and heaven? and she of 

whom you speak, 
My mother, looks as whole as 

some serene 
Creation minted in the golden 

moods 
Of sovereign artists; not a 

thought, a touch. 
But pure as lines of green that 

streak the white 
Of the first snowdrop's inner 

leaves; I say, 
190 Not like the piebald miscellany, 

man, 
Bursts of great heart and slips in 

sensual mire. 
But whole and one: and take 

them all-in-all. 
Were we ourselves but half as 

good, as kind. 
As truthful, much that Ida claims 

as right 
Had ne'er been mooted, but as 

frankly theirs 
As dues of Nature. To our 

point: not war; 
Lest I lose all.' 

'Nay, nay, you spake but sense,' 



Said Gama. 'We remember love 

ourself 
In our sweet youth; we did not 

rate him then 
This red-hot iron to be shaped 200 

with blows. 
You talk almost like Ida: she can 

talk; 
And there is something in it as 

you say: 
But you talk kindlier: we esteem 

you for it. — 
He seems a gracious and a gallant 

Prince, 
I would he had our daughter: for 

the rest, 
Our own detention, why, the 

causes weigh'd. 
Fatherly fears — you used us cour- 
teously — 
We would .do much to gratify 

your Prince — 
We pardon it; and for your in- 
gress here 
Upon the skirt and fringe of our 210 

fair land. 
You did but come as goblins in 

the night. 
Nor in the furrow broke the 

ploughman's head. 
Nor burnt the grange, nor buss'd 

the milking-maid. 
Nor robb'd the farmer of his bowl 

of cream: 
But let your Prince (our royal 

word upon it. 
He comes back safe) ride with us 

to our lines. 
And speak with Arac: Arac's 

word is thrice 
As ours with Ida: something may 

'oe done — 
I know not what — and ours shall 

see us friends. 
You, likewise, our late guests, if 220 

so you will. 



PART V. 



65 



Follow us: who knows? we four 

may build some plan 
Foursquare to opposition.' 

Here he reach'd 
White hands of farewell to my 

sire, who growl'd 
An answer which, half-muffled in 

his beard. 
Let so much out as gave us leave 

to go. 

Then rode we with the old king 
across the lawns 

Beneath huge trees, a thousand 
rings of Spring 

In every bole, a song on every 
spray 

Of birds that piped their Valen- 
tines, and woke 
30 Desire in me to infuse my tale of 
love 

In the old king's ears, who prom- 
ised help, and oozed 

All o'er with honey'd answer as 
we rode; 

And blossom-fragrant slipt the 
heavy dews 

Gather'd by night and peace, with 
each light air 

On our mail'd heads: but other 
thoughts than peace 

Burnt in us, when we saw the em- 
battled squares 

And squadrons of the Prince, 
trampling the flowers 

With clamor: for among them 
rose a cry 

As if to greet the king; they made 
a halt; 
140 The horses yell'd; they clash'd 
their arms; the drum 

Beat; merrily-blowing shrill'd the 
martial fife; 

And in the blast and bray of the 
long horn 

And serpent-throated bugle, un- 
dulated 



The banner: anon to meet us 
lightly pranced 

Three captains out; nor ever had 
I seen 

Such thews of men: the midmost 
and the highest 

Was Arac: all about his motion 
clung 

The shadow of his sister, as the 
beam 

Of the East, that play'd upon 
them, made them glance 

Like those three stars of the airy 250 
Giant's*" zone. 

That glitter burnish'd by the fros- 
ty dark; 

And as the fiery Sirius alters hue, 

And bickers into red and emerald, 
shone 

Their morions, wash'd with morn- 
ing, as they came. 

And I that prated peace, when 
first I heard 

War-music, felt the blind wild- 
beast of force. 

Whose home is in the sinews of a 
man. 

Stir in me as to strike: then took 
the king 

His three broad sons; with now 
a wandering hand 

And now a pointed finger, told 260 
them all: 

A common light of smiles at our 
disguise 

Broke from their lips, and, ere the 
windy jest 

Had labor'd down within his am- 
ple lungs. 

The genial giant, Arac, roll'd him- 
self 

Thrice in the saddle, then burst 
out in words: 

8 See Orion. CI. Diet. 



66 



THE PRINCESS. 



'Our land invaded, 'sdeath! and 
he himself 
Your captive, yet my father wills 

not war: 
And, "sdeath! myself, what care I, 

war or no? 
But then this question of your 
troth remains: 
270 And there's a downright honest 
meaning in her; 
She flies too high, she flies too 

high! and yet 
She ask'd but space and fair-play 

for her scheme; 
She prest and prest it on me — I 

myself. 
What know I of these things? but, 

life and soul! 
I thought her half-right talking 

of her wrongs; 
I say she flies too high, 'sdeath! 

what of that? 
I take her for the flower of wo- 
mankind. 
And so I often told her, right or 

wrong; 
And, Prince, she can be sweet to 
those she loves, 
280 And, right or wrong, I care not: 
this is all, 
I stand upon her side: she made 

me swear it — 
'Sdeath! — and with solemn rites 

by candle-light — 
Swear by Saint^ something — I 

forget her name — 
Her that talk'd down the fifty 

wisest men; , 

She was a princess too; and so I 

swore. 
Come, this is all; she will not: 

waive your claim: 
If not, the foughten field, what 
else, at once 

9 St. Catherine ot Alexandria, usually 
represented with a wheel. 



Decides it. 'sdeath! against my 
father's will.' 

I lagg'd in answer, loth to ren- 
der up 

My precontract, and loth by 290 
brainless war 

To cleave the rift of difiference 
deeper yet; 

Till one of those two brothers, 
half aside 

And fingering at the hair about 
his lip. 

To prick us on to combat, 'Like 
to like! 

The woman's garment hid the 
woman's heart.' 

A taunt that clench'd his purpose 
like a blow! 

For fiery-short was Cyril's coun- 
ter-scoff. 

And sharp I answer'd, touch'd 
upon the point 

Where idle boys are cowards to 
their shame, 

'Decide it here: why not? we are 3o( 
three to three.' 

Then spake the third, "But three 

to three? no more? 
No more, and in our noble sister's 

cause? 
More, more, for honor! every 

captain waits 
Hungry for honor, angry for his 

king. 
More, more, some fifty on a side. 

that each 
May breathe himself, and quick! 

by overthrow 
Of these or those, the question 

settled die.' 

'Yea,' answer'd I, 'for this wild 
wreath of air. 
This ilake of rainbow flying on 
the highest 



PART V. 



67 



510 Foam of men's deeds — this honor, 

if ye will. 
It needs must be for honor if at 

all: 
Since, what decision? if we fail, 

we fail. 
And if we win, we fail; she would 

not keep 
Her compact.' ''Sdeath! but we 

will send to her," 
Said Arac, 'worthy reasons why 

she should 
Bide by this issue: let our missive 

thro', 
And you shall have her answer by 

the word.' 

'Boys!' shrieked the old king, 

but vainlier than a hen 
To her false daughters in the 

pool; for noue 
120 Regarded; neither seem'd there 

more to say: 
Back rode we to my father's camp, 

and found 
He thrice had sent a herald to the 

gates. 
To learn if Ida yet would cede 

our claim. 
Or by denial flush her babbling 

wells 
With her own people's life: three 

times he went: 
The first, he blew and blew, but 

none appear'd: 
He batter'd at the doors; none 

came: the next. 
An awful voice within had warn'd 

him thence: 
The third, and those eight daugh- 
ters of the plough 
30 Came sallying thro' the gates, and 

caught his hair. 
And so belabor'd him on rib and 

cheek 
They made him wild: not less one 

glance he caught 



Thro' open doors of Ida station'd 
there 

Unshaken, clinging to her pur- 
pose, firm 

Tho' compass'd by two armies 
and the noise 

Of arms; and standing like a 
stately pine 

Set in a cataract on an island- 
crag. 

When storm is on the heights, 
and right and left 

Suck'd from the dark heart of 
the long hills roll 

The torrents, dash'd to the vale: 340 
and yet her will 

Bred will in me to overcome it 
or fall. 

But when I told the king that 

I was pledged 
To fight in tourney for my bride, 

he clash'd 
His iron palms together with a 

cry; 
Himself would tilt it out among 

the lads: 
But overborne by all his bearded 

lords 
With reasons drawn from age and 

state, perforce 
He yielded, wroth and red, with 

fierce demur; 
And many a bold knight started 

up in heat, 
And sware to combat for my 350 

claim till death. 

All on this side the palace 
ran the field 

Flat to the garden-wall; and 
likewise here. 

Above the garden's glowing blos- 
som-belts, 

A column'd entry shone and 
marble stairs. 



68 



THE PRINCESS. 



And great bronze valves, em- 

boss'd with Tomyris^** 
And what she did to Cyrus after 

fight, 
But now fast barr'd: so here upon 

the flat 
All that long morn the lists were 

hammer'd^^ up. 
And all that morn the heralds to 

and fro, 
360 With message and defiance, went 

and came; 
Last, Ida's answer, in a royal 

hand, 
But shaken here and there, and 

rolling words 
Oration-like. I kiss'd it and I 

read: 

'O brother, you have known the 
pangs we felt. 

What heats of indignation when 
we heard 

Of those that iron-cramp'd their 
women's feet; 

Of lands in which at the altar the 
poor bride 

Gives her harsh groom for bridal- 
gift a scourge ;i- 

Of living hearts that crack within 
the fire 
370 Where smoulder their dead des- 
pots; and of those, — 

Mothers, — that, all prophetic pity, 
fling 

Their pretty maids in the running 
flood, and swoops 

The vulture, beak and talon, at the 
heart 

Made for all noble motion: and I 
saw 

That equal baseness lived in sleek- 
er times 

'"Cl. Diet. 

"See eighth chapter, Scott's Ivanhoe. 

'> An old Russian custom. 



With smoother men; the old 
leaven leaven'd ail: 

Millions of throats would bawl 
for civil rights. 

No woman named: therefore I 
set my face 

Against all men, and lived but 
for mine own. 

Far ofY from men I built a fold 
for them; 

I stored it full of rich memorial; 

I fenced it round with gallant 
institutes, 

And biting laws to scare the 
beasts of prey, 

And prosper'd; till a rout of 
saucy boys 

Brake on us at our books, and 
marr'd our peace, 

Mask'd like our maids, blustering 
I know not what 

Of insolence and love, some pre- 
text held 

Of baby troth, invalid, since my 
will 

Seal'd not the bond — the strip- 
lings! — for their sport! — 

I tamed my leopards: shall I not 
tame these? 

Or you? or I? for since you think 
me touch'd 

In honor — what! I would not 
aught of false — 

Is not our cause pure? and where- 
as I know 

Your prowess, .A.rac, and what 
mother's blood 

You draw from, fight; you fail- 
ing, I abide 

What end soever: fail you will 
not. Still, 

Take not his life: he risk'd it for 
my own; 

His mother lives: yet whatsoe'er 
you do. 

Fight and fight well; strike and 
strike home. O dear 



PART V 



69 



10 Brothers, the woman's Angel 

guards you. you 
The sole men to be mingled with 

our cause, 
The sole men we shall prize in the 

after-time 
Your very armor hallow'd, and 

your statues 
Rear'd, sung to, when, this gadfly 

brush'd aside, 
We plant a solid foot into the 

Time, 
And mould a generation strong 

to move 
With claim on claim from right 

to right, till she 
Whose name is yoked with chil- 
dren's, know herself; 
And Knowledge in our own land 

make her free, 
[o And, ever following those two 

crowned twins, 
Commerce and Conquest, shower 

the fiery grain 
Of freedom broadcast over all that 

orbs 
Between the Northern and the 

Southern morn.' 

Then came a postscript's dash'd 
across the rest: 

'See that there be no traitors in 
your camp: 

We seem a nest of traitors — none 
to trust 

Since our arms fail'd — this Egypt- 
plague of men ! 

Almost our maids were better at 
their homes, 

Than thus man-girdled here: in- 
deed I think 
20 Our chiefest comfort is the little 
child 
. Of one imworthy mother; which 
she left: 

'3 A frequent conclusion to a woman's 
letter. 



She shall not have it back; the 

child shall grow 
To prize the authentic mother of 

her mind. 
I took it for an hour in mine own 

bed 
This morning; there the tender 

orphan hands 
Felt at my heart, and seem'd to 

charm from thence 
The wrath I nursed against the 

world: farewell.' 

I ceased; he said, 'Stubborn, but 
she may sit 

Upon a king's right hand in thun- 
der-storms. 

And breed up warriors! See now, 430 
tho' yourself 

Be dazzled by the wildfire Love 
to sloughs 

That swallow common sense, the 
spindling king, 

This Gama swamp'd in lazy toler- 
ance. 

When the man wants weight, the 
woman takes it up. 

And topples down the scales; but 
this is fixt 

As are the roots of earth and base 
of all: 

Man for the field and woman for 
the hearth; 

Man for the sword and for the 
needle she; 

Man with the head and woman 
with the heart; 

Man to command and woman to 440 
obey; 

All else confusion. Look you! the 
gray mare 

Is ill to live with, when her whin- 
ny shrills 

From tile to scullery, and her 
small goodman 

Shrinks in his arm-chair while 
the fires of hell 



70 



THE PRINCESS. 



Mix with his hearth: but you — 
she's yet a colt — 

Take, break her; strongly groom'd 
and straitly curb'd 

She might not rank with those de- 
testable 

That let the bantling scald at 
home, and brawl 

Their rights or wrongs like pot- 
herbs in the street. 
450 They say she's comely; there's the 
fairer chance: 

I like her none the less for rating 
at her! 

Besides, the woman wed is not as 
we. 

But suffers change of frame. A 
lusty brace 

Of twins may weed her of her 
folly. Boy, 

The bearing and the training of a 
child 

Is woman's wisdom.' 

Thus the hard old king: 

I took my leave, for it was nearly 
noon; 

I pored upon her letter which I 
held. 

And on the little clause, 'take not 
his life;' 
460 I mused on that wild morning in 
the woods. 

And on the 'Follow, follow, thou 
shalt win;' 

I thought on all the wrathful king 
had said. 

And how the strange betrothment 
was to end: 

Then I remember'd that burnt 
sorcerer's curse 

That one should fight with shad- 
ows and should fall; 

And like a flash the weird affec- 
tion came: 

King, camp, and college turn'd 
to hollow shows; 



I seem'd to move in old memorial 

tilts. 
And doing battle with forgotten 

ghosts. 
To dream myself the shadow of a 

dream ; 
And ere I woke it was the point 

of noon. 
The lists were ready. Empano- 

plied and plumed 
We enter'd in, and waited, fifty 

there 
Opposed to fifty, till the trumpet 

blared 
At the barrier like a wild horn 

in a land 
Of echoes, and a moment, and 

once more 
The trumpet, and again; at which 

the storm 
Of galloping hoofs bare on the 

ridge of spears 
And riders front to front, until 

they closed 
In conflict with the crash of shiv- 
ering points. 
And thunder. Yet it seem'd a 

dream, I dream'd 
Of fighting. On his haunches 

rose the steed. 
And into fiery splinters leapt the 

lance. 
And out of stricken helmets 

sprang the fire. 
Part sat like rocks; part reel'd 

but kept their seats; 
Part roll'd on the earth and rose 

again and drew; 
Part stumbled niixt with floun- 
dering horses. Down 
From those two bulks at Arac's 

side, and down 
From Arac's arm, as from a 

giant's flail, 
The large blows rain'd, as here 

and everywhere 



PART V. 



71 



He rode the rnellay,!* lord of the 

ringing lists. 
And all the plain, — brand, mace, 

and shaft, and shield — ■ 
Shock'd, like an iron-clanging an- 
vil bang'd 
With hammers; till I thought, can 

this be he 
From Gama's dwarfish loins? if 

this be so, 
The mother makes us most — and 

in my dream 
I glanced aside, and saw the 

palace-front 
Alive with fluttering scarfs and 

ladies' eyes, 
And highest, among the statues, 

statue-like, 
Between a cymbal'd Miriam and 

a Jael, 
With Psyche's babe, was Ida 

watching us, 
A single band of gold about her 

hair, 
Like a Saint's glory up in heaven; 

but she 
No saint — inexorable — no tender- 
ness — 
Too hard, too cruel: yet she sees 

me fight, 
Yea, let her see me fall! with that 

I drave 
Among the thickest and bore 

down a Prince, 
And Cyril one. Yea, let me make 

my dream 
All that I would. But that large- 
moulded man, 
o His visage all agrin as at a 
1, wake,!^ 

'♦See Wb 

'5 Originally a wake was an all-night 
feast to commemorate the building of a 
church, but after a time devotion became 
lessened and the feast degenerated to a 
merry making. 



Made at me thro' the press, and, 

staggering back 
With stroke on stroke the horse 

and horseman, came 
As comes a pillar of electric 

cloud. 
Flaying the roofs and sucking up 

the drains. 
And shadowing down the cham- 
paign till it strikes 
On a wood, and takes, and breaks, 

and cracks, and splits. 
And twists the grain with such a 

roar that Earth 
Reels, and the herdsmen cry; for 

everything 
Gave way before him: only Flo- 

rian, he 
That loved me closer than his 520 

own right eye, 
Thrust in between; but Arac rode 

him down: 
And Cyril seeing it, push'd against 

the Prince, 
With Psyche's color round his 

helmet, tough. 
Strong, supple, sinew-corded, apt 

at arms; 
But tougher, heavier, stronger, 

he that smote 
And threw him: last I spurr'd; I 

felt my veins 
Stretch with fierce heat; a mo- 
ment hand to hand, 
And sword to sword, and horse 

to horse we hung. 
Till I struck out and shouted; the 

blade glanced, 
I did but shear a feather, and 530 

dream and truth 
Flow'd from me; darkness closed 

me; and I fell. 



72 



THE PRINCESS. 




Then they praised him, soft and 
low, 
Call'd him worthy to be loved. 
Truest friend and noblest foe; 
Yet she neither spoke nor 
moved. 

Stole a maiden from her place. 
Lightly to the warrior stept, 

Took the face-cloth from the face; 
Yet she neither moved nor 
wept. 

Rose a nurse of ninety years, 
Set his child upon her knee — 

Like summer tempest came her 
tears — 
'Sweet my child. I live for thee.' 



'€?0-e»jX?VT?<».fj;5=^ •^'5^«i=svtrjai-<4^e: 



PART VI. 



1if*^2sd2:-^3S=:,=-C:;!J CJc:i>':g'=C5:>5t?=f(S! 



A/I Y dream had never died or 

^'* lived again. 

As in some mystic middle state I 

lay; 
Seeing I saw not, hearing not I 

heard: 
Tho', if I saw not, yet they told 

me all 
So often that I speak as having 

seen. 

For so it seem'd, or so they said 

to me. 
That all things grew more tragic 

and more strange; 
That when onr side was van- 

quish'd and my cause 
For ever lost, there went up a 

great cry, 
"The Prince is slain.' My father 

heard and ran 
In on the lists, and there unlaced 

my casque 
And grovell'd on my body, and 

after him 
Came Psyche, sorrowing for 

Aglaia. 

But high upon the palace Ida 

stood 
With Psyche's babe in arm; there 

on the roofs 
Like that great dame of Lapidoth^ 

she sang. 

' See Judges IV, lines 4, 5. 



Our enemies have fallen, have fallen : 

the seed, 
The little seed they laugh'd at in the 

dark, 
Has risen and cleft the soil, and grown 

a bulk 
Of spanless girth, that lays on every 

side 
A thousand arms and rushes to the sun. 

Our enemies have fallen, have fallen : 
they came ; 

The leaves were wet with women's 
tears ; thej' heard 

A noise of songs they would not under- 
stand ; 

They mark'd it with the red cross to 
the fall, 

And would have strown it, and are 
fallen themselves. 

Our enemies have fallen, have fallen . 

they came, 
The woodmen with their axes : lo the 

tree ! 
But we will make it faggots for the 

hearth ; 
And shape it plank and beam for roof 

and floor. 
And boats and bridges for the use of 

men. 

Our enemies have fallen, have fallen ; 
they struck ; 

With tneir own blows they hurt them- 
selves, nor knew 

There dwelt an iron nature in the 
grain ; 

The glittering axe was broken in their 
arms. 

Their arms were shatter'd to the 
shoulder blade. 

Our enemies have fallen, but this 

shall grow 
A night of Summer from the heat, a 

breadth 
Of Autumn, dropping fruits of power ; 

and roll'd 
With music in the growing breeze of 

Time, 
The tops shall strike from star to star, 

the fangs 
Shall move the stony bases of the world. 



30 



74 



THE PRINCESS. 



'And now, O maids, behold our 
sanctuary 

Is violate, our laws broken: fear 
we not 

To break them more in their be- 
hoof, whose arms 

Champion'd our cause and won 
it with a day 

Blanch'd in our annals, and per- 
petual feast, 

When dames and heroines of the 
golden year 

Shall strip a hundred hollows 
bare of Spring. 
50 To rain an April of ovation round 

Their statues, borne aloft, the 
three; but come. 

We will be liberal, since our 
rights are won. 

Let them not lie in the tents with 
coarse mankind, 

111 nurses; but descend, and prof- 
fer these 

The brethren of our blood and 
cause, that there 

Lie bruised and maim'd, the ten- 
der ministries 

Of female hands and hospitality.' 

She spoke, and with the babe 

yet in her arms. 
Descending burst the great bronze 

valves, and led 
60 A hundred maids in train across 

the park. 
Some cowl'd, and some bare- 
headed, on they came, 
Their feet in flowers, her loveliest: 

by them went 
The enamor'd air sighing, and on 

their curls 
From the high tree the blossom 

wavering fell. 
And over them the tremulous 

isles of light 
Slided, they moving under shade; 

but Blanche 



At distance follow'd: so they 

came: anon 
Thro' open fields into the lists 

they wound 
Timorously; and as the leader of 

the herd 
That holds a stately fretwork to 70 

the sun, 
And follow'd up by a hundred airy 

does, 
Steps with a tender foot, light as 

on air, 
The lovely, lordly creature floated 

on 
To where her wounded brethren 

lay; there stay'd; 
Knelt on one knee, — the child on 

one, — and prest 
Their hands, and call'd them dear 

deliverers. 
And happy warriors, and immor- 
tal names. 
And said, 'You shall not lie in the 

tents but here. 
And nursed by those for whom 

you fought, and served 
With female hands and hospital- so 

ity.' 

Then, whether moved by this. 

or was it chance. 
She past my way. Up started from 

my side 
The old lion, glaring with his 

whelpless eye. 
Silent; but when she saw me 

lying stark. 
Dishelm'd and mute, and mo- 

tionlessly pale. 
Cold e'en to her, she sigh'd; and 

when she saw 
The haggard father's face and rev- 
erend beard 
Of grisly twine, all dabbled with 

the blood 
Of his own son, shudder'd. a 

twitch of pain 



PART VI. 



75 



90 Tortured her mouth, and o'er her 

forehead past 
A shadow, and her hue changed, 

and she said: 
'He saved my Hfe; my brother 

slew him for it.' 
No more; at which the king in 

bitter scorn 
Drew from my neck the painting 

and the tress, 
And held them up: she saw them. 

and a day 
Rose from the distance on her 

memory. 
When the good queen, her moth- 
er, shore the tress 
With kisses, ere the days of Lady 

Blanche: 
And then once more she look'd 

at my pale face: 
00 Till understanding all the foolish 

work 
Of Fancy, and the bitter close of 

all, 
Her iron will was broken in her 

mind; 
Her noble heart was molten in 

her breast; 
She bow'd, she set the child on 

the earth; she laid 
A feeling finger on my brows, and 

presently 
'O Sire,' she said, 'he lives; he is 

not dead: 
O let me have him with my 

brethren here 
In our own palace: we will tend 

on him 
Like one of these; if so, by any 

means, 
10 To lighten this great clog of 

thanks, that make 
Our progress falter to the wo- 
man's goal.' 



She said: but at the happy word 
'he lives' 



My father sioop'd, re-father'd- 

o'er my wounds. 
So those two foes above my fal- 
len life. 
With brow to brow like night and 

. evening mixt 
Their dark and gray, while Psyche 

ever stole 
A little nearer, till the babe that 

by us, 
Half-lapt in glowing gauze and 

golden brede, 
Lay like a new-fallen meteor on 

the grass, 
Uncared for, spied its mother and 120 

began 
A blind and babbling laughter, 

and to dance 
Its body, and reach its fatling in- 
nocent arms 
And lazy lingering fingers. She 

the appeal 
Brook'd not, but clamoring out 

"Mine — mine— not yours; 
It is not yours, but mine: give me 

the child!' 
Ceased all on tremble :" piteous 

was the cry: 
So stood the unhappy mother 

open-mouth'd, 
And turn'd each face her way: 

wan was her cheek 
With hollow watch, her bl'ooming 

mantle torn. 
Red grief and mother's hunger in 130 

her eye, 
And down dead-heavy sank her 

curls, and half 
The sacred mother's bosom, pant- 
ing, burst 
The laces toward her babe; but 

she nor cared 

2 Became once more a father, the son 
having come to life. 

3 The prefix a in such words as afoot, 
etc., is merelj' a contraction of on. See 
Acts XIII, 36. 



76 



THE PRINCESS. 



Nor knew it, clamoring on, till 

Ida heard, 
Look'd up, and rising slowly from 

me, stood 
Erect and silent, strikmg with her 

glance . 

The mother, me, the child; but 

he that lay 
Beside us, Cyril, batter d as he 

was, 
Trail'd himself up on one knee: 
then he drew 
140 Her robe to meet his lips, and 
down she look'd 
At the arm'd man sideways, pity- 
ing as it seem'd. 
Or self-involved; but when she 

learnt his face. 
Remembering his ill-omen d song, 

arose . 

Once more thro' all her height, 

and o'er him grew 
Tall as a figure lengthen'd on the 

sand 
When the tide ebbs in sunshine, 
and he said: 

•O fair and strong and terrible! 

Lioness 
That with your long locks play 

the lion's mane! 
But Love and Nature, these are 

tw© more terrible 
150 And stronger. See, your foot is 

on our necks. 
We vanquish'd, you the victor of 

your will. 
What would you more? give her 

the child! remain 
Orb'd in your isolation: he is 

dead, ^ , , ^ 

Or all as dead: henceforth we let 

you be: 
Win you the hearts of women; 

and beware 
Lest, where you seek the com- 
mon love of these, 



The common hate with the re- 
volving wheel 
Should drag you down, and some 

great Nemesis 
Break from a darken'd future, 

crown'd with fire. 
And tread you out for ever: but 160 

howsoe'er 
Fixt in yourself, never in your 

own arms 
To hold your own, deny not hers 

to her, 
Give her the child! O if, I say, 

you keep 
One pulse that beats true woman, 

if you loved 
The breast that fed or arm that 

dandled you, 
Or own one port of sense not flint 

to prayer, 
Give her the child! or if you 

scorn to lay it. 
Yourself, in hands so lately claspt 

with yours, 
Or speak to her, your dearest, her 

one fault 
The tenderness, not yours, that i7< 

could not kill. 
Give me it; I will give it her. 

He said: 
\t first her eve with slow dilation 

roU'd 
Dry flame, she listening; after 

sank and sank 
And, into mournful twilight mel- 
lowing, dwelt 
Full on the child; she took it: 

•Pretty bud! 
Lily of the vale! half-open'd bell 

of the woods! 
Sole comfort of my dark hour, 

when a world 
Of traitorous friend and broken 

system made 
No purple in the distance, mys- 
tery, 



PART VI . 



77 



So Pledge of a love not to be mine, 

farewell ! 
These men are hard upon us as of 

old, 
We two must part; and yet how 

fain was I 
To dream thy cause embraced in 

mine, to think 
I might be something to thee. 

when I felt 
Thy helpless warmth about my 

barren breast 
In the dead prime ;•* but may thy 

mother prove 
As true to thee as false, false, false 

to me! 
And, if thou needs must bear the 

yoke, I wish it 
Gentle as freedom' — here she 

kiss'd it: then — 
190 'All good go with thee! take it. 

Sir,' and so 
Laid the soft babe in his hard- 
mailed hands, 
Who turn'd half-round to Psyche 

as she sprang 
To meet it, with an eye that swum 

in thanks; 
Then felt it sound and whole from 

head to foot. 
And hugg'd and never hugg'd it 

close enough. 
And in her hunger mouth'd and 

mumbled it. 
And hid her bosom with it; after 

that 
Put on more calm and added sup- 

pliantly : 

* 'We two were friends: I go to 

mine own land 
200 For ever: find some other: as for 
, me 

I scarce am fit for your great 
plans: yet speak to me, 

*The early dawn, when all is still. 



Say one soft word and let me part 
forgiven.' 

But Ida spoke not, rapt upon 

the child. 
Then Arac: 'Ida — 'sdeath! you 

blame the man; 
You wrong yourselves — the wo- 
man is so hard 
Upon the woman. Come, a grace 

to me! 
I am your warrior; I and mine 

have fought 
Your battle: kiss her; take her 

hand, she weeps: 
'Sdeath! I would sooner fight 

thrice o'er than see it.' 

But Ida spoke not, gazing on 210 

the ground. 
And reddening in the furrows of 

his chin. 
And moved beyond his custom, 

Gama said: 

'I've heard that there is iron in 
the blood. 

And I believe it. Not one word? 
not one? 

Whence drew you this steel tem- 
per? not from me. 

Not from your mother, now a 
saint with saints. 

She said you had a heart — I heard 
her say it — - 

"Our Ida has a heart" — just ere 
she died — 

"But see that some one with au- 
thority 

Be near her still;" and I — I 220 
sought for one; — 

All people said she had author- 
ity— 

The Lady Blanche: much profit! 
Not one word; 

No! tho' your father sues: see 
how you stand 



78 



THE PRINCESS. 



Stiff as Lot's wife, and all the 

good knights maim'd, 
I trust that there is no one hurt 

to death. 
For your wild whim: and was it 

then for this. 
Was it for this we gave our palace 

up, 
Where we withdrew from summer 

heats and state. 
And had our wine and chess be- 
neath the planes, 
230 And many a pleasant hour with 
her that's gone. 
Ere you were born to vex us? Is 

it kind? 
Speak to her, I say: is this not 

she of whom. 
When first she came, all flush'd 

you said to me. 
Now had you got a friend of your 

own age. 
Now could you share your 
thought; now should men see 
Two women faster welded in one 

love 
Than pairs of wedlock? she you 

walk'd with, she 
You talk'd with, whole nights 

long, up in the tower. 
Of sine and arc, spheroid and 
azimuth,^ 
240 And right ascension. Heaven 
knows what; and now 
A word, but one, one little kindly 

word, 
Not one to spare her: out upon 

you. flint! 
You love nor her, nor me, nor 

any; nay, 
You shame your mother's judg- 
ment too. Not one? 
You will not? well — no heart 

have you, or such 
As fancies like the vermin in a nut 

6 Terms used in derision by the king 
to imply his contempt and anger. 



Have fretted all to dust and bit- 
terness.' 

So said the small king moved be- 
yond his wont. 

But Ida stood nor spoke, 
drain'd of her force 

By many a varying influence and 250 
so long. 

Down thro' her limbs a drooping 
languor wept: 

Her head a little bent; and on her 
mouth 

A doubtful smile dwelt like a 
clouded moon 

In a still water: then brake out 
my sire. 

Lifting his grim head from my 
wounds: 'O you. 

Woman, whom we thought wo- 
man even now, 

And were half fool'd to let you 
tend our son. 

Because he might have wish'd it 
— but we see 

The accomplice of your madness 
unforgiven, 

And think that you might mix his 26c 
draught with death. 

When your skies change again: 
the rougher hand 

Is safer: on to the tents: take up 
the Prince.' 

He rose, and while each ear was 
prick'd to attend 

A tempest, thro' the cloud that 
dimm'd her broke 

A genial warmth and light once 
more, and shone 

Thro' glittering drops on her sad 
friend. 

'Come hither, 
O Psyche.' she cried out, "em- 
brace me, come. 
Quick while I melt; make recon- 
cilement sure 
With one that cannot keep her 
mind an hour: 



PART VI. 



79 



!7o Come to the hollow heart they 

slander so! 
Kiss and be friends, like children 

being chid! 
I seem no more: I want forgive- 
ness too: 
I should have had to do with 

none but maids. 
That have no links with men. Ah 

false but dear. 
Dear traitor, too much loved, 

why? — why? — Yet see, 
Before these kings we embrace 

you yet once more 
With all forgiveness, all oblivion, 
And trust, not love, you less. 

And now, O Sire, 
Grant me your son, to nurse, to 

wait upon him, 
!8o Like mine own brother. For my 

debt to him, 
This nightmare weight of grati- 
tude, I know it; 
Taunt me no more: yourself and 

yours shall have 
Free adit;^ we will scatter all our 

maids 
Till happier times each to her 

proper hearth: 
What use to keep them here — 

now? grant my prayer. 
Help, father, brother, help; speak 

to the king: 
Thaw this male nature to some 

touch of that 
Which kills me with myself, and 

drags me down 
From my fixt height to mob me 

up with all 
290 The soft and milky rabble of wo- 
mankind. 
Poor weakling even as they are.' 
Passionate tears 
Follow'd: the king replied not: 

Cyril said: 

« Free entrance, opposite of exit. 



'Your brother. Lady, — Florian, — 
ask for him 

Of your great Head — for he is 
wounded too — 

That you may tend upon him with 
the Prince.' 

"Ay, so,' said Ida with a bitter 
smile, 

'Our laws are broken; let him 
enter too.' 

Then Violet, she that sang the 
mournful song, 

And had a cousin tumbled on the 
plain. 

Petition'd too for him. 'Ay, so,' 
she said, 

'I stagger in the stream; I can- 
not keep 

My heart an eddy from the brawl- 
ing hour: 

We break our laws with ease, but 
let it be.' 

'Ay, so?' said Blanche: 'Amazed 
am I to hear 

Your Highness; but your High- 
ness breaks with ease 

The law your Highness did not 
make: 't was L 

I had been wedded wife, I knew 
mankind. 

And block'd them out; but these 
men came to woo 

Your Highness — verily I think to 
win.' 

So she, and turn'd askance a 

wintry eye; 
But Ida, with a voice that, like a 

bell 
Toll'd by an earthquake in a 

trembling tower. 
Rang ruin, answer'd full of grief 

and scorn: 

'Fling our doors wide! all, all, 
not one, but all. 



300 



8o 



THE PRINCESS. 



Not only he, but by my mother's 

soul, 
Whatever man lies wounded, 

friend or foe, 
Shall enter, if he will! Let our 

girls flit, 
Till the storm die! but had you 

stood by us. 
The roar that breaks the Pharos" 

from his base 
320 Had left us rock. She fain would 

sting us too, 
But shall not. Pass, and mingle 

with your likes. 
We brook no further insult, but 

are gone.' 

She turn'd; the very nape of 

her white neck 
Was rosed with indignation: but 

the Prince 
Her brother came; the king her 

father charm'd 
Her wounded soul with words: 

nor did mine own 
Refuse her profifer, lastly gave his 

hand. 

Then us they lifted up, dead 

weights, and bare 
Straight to the doors: to them the 

doors gave way 
330 Groaning, and in the Vestal entry 

shriek'd 
The virgin marble under iron 

heels: 
And on they moved and gain'd 

the hall, and there 
Rested: but great the crush was, 

and each base, 
To left and right, of those tall 

columns drown'd 
In silken fluctuation and the 

swarm 

'An ancient lighthouse near Alexan- 
dria. 



Of female whisperers: at the fur- 
ther end 
Was Ida by the throne, the two 

great cats 
Close by her, like supporters* on 

a shield, 
Bow-back'd with fear: but in the 

centre stood 
The common men with rolling 340. 

eyes; amazed 
They glared upon the women, and 

aghast 
The women stared at these, all 

silent, save 
When armor clash'd or jingled, 

while the day. 
Descending, struck athwart the 

hall, and shot 
A flying splendor out of brass and 

steel. 
That o'er the statues leapt from 

head to head, 
Now fired an angry Pallas on the 

helm. 
Now set a wrathful Dian's moon 

on flame; 
And now and then an echo started 

up, 
And shuddering fled from room 350 

to room, and died 
Of fright in far apartments. 

Then the voice 
Of Ida sounded, issuing ordi- 
nance: 
And me they bore up the broad 

stairs, and thro' 
The long-laid galleries past a hun- 
dred doors 
To one deep chamber shut from 

sound, and due 
To languid limbs and sickness; 

left me in it; 
And others otherwhere** they laid; 

and all 

8 In heraldry, the figures which sur- 
round the central shield in a coat of arms. 

9 Cf. Prol., line So. 



PART IT. 



That afternoon a sound arose of 
hoof 

And chariot, many a maiden pass- 
ing home 
560 Till happier times; but some were 
left of those 



Held sagest, and the great lords 
out and in. 

From those two hosts that lay be- 
side the wall, 

Walk'd at their will, and every- 
thing was changed. 



Ask me no more: the moon may 
draw the sea; 
The cloud may stoop from 
heaven and take the shape. 
With fold to fold, of mountain 
or of cape; 
But O too fond, when have I an- 
swer'd thee? 

Ask me no more. 

Ask me no more: what answer 
should I give ? 
I love not hollow cheek or fad- 
ed eye: 
Yet, O my friend, I will not 
have thee die! 
Ask me no more, lest I should bid 
thee live; 

Ask me no more. 



Ask me no more: thy fate and 
mine are seal'd: 
I strove against the stream and 

all in vain: 
Let the great river take me to 
the main: 
No more, dear love, for at a 
touch I yield; 

Ask me no more. 



?='-Ko-<.j:Xvv^.tj;!c=^ «'P5o3'=^=5=:^vr3''=3-<3:»l^ 



PARTVll. 



4I5;:?22!ir5s=wC^ t?;:ii=,'g==^3:^^!t^(? 



SO was their sanctuary violated, 
So their fair college turn'd to 
hospital; 

At first with all confusion: by 
and by 

Sweet order lived again with oth- 
er laws: 

A kindlier influence reign'd; and 
everywhere 

Low voices with the ministering 
hand 

Hung round the sick: the maid- 
ens came, they talk'd, 

They sang, they read: till she not 
fair began 

To gather light, and she that was 
became 
10 Her former beauty treble; and to 
and fro 

With books, with flowers, with 
angel offices. 

Like creatures native unto gra- 
cious act. 

And in their own clear element, 
they moved. 

But sadness on the soul of Ida 

fell. 
And hatred of her weakness, 

blent with shame. 
Old studies fail'd; seldom she 

spoke; but oft 
Clomb to the roofs, and gazed 

alone for hours 
On that disastrous leaguer, 

swarms of men 
Darkening her female field: void 

was her use. 



And she as one that climbs a peak 20 

to gaze 
O'er land and main, and sees a 

great black cloud 
Drag inward from the deeps, a 

wall of night. 
Blot out the slope of sea from 

verge! to shore, 
And suck the blinding splendor 

from the sand. 
And quenching lake by lake and 

tarn by tarn 
Expunge the world: so fared she 

gazing there; 
So blacken'd all her world in se- 
cret, blank 
And waste it seem'd and vain; till 

down she came. 
And found fair peace once more 

among the sick. 

And twilight dawn'd; and morn 

by morn the lark 
Shot up and shrill'd in flickering 

gyres, but I 
Lay silent in the muffled cage of 

life: 
And twilight gloom'd; and 

broader-grown the bowers 
Drew the great night into them- 
selves, and Heaven, 
Star after star, arose and fell; but 

L 
Deeper than those weird doubts 

could reach me, lay 
Quite sunder'd from the moving 

Universe, 

' Cf. Part IV, line 29. 



PART VII. 



Nor knew what eye was on me, 
nor the hand 

That nursed me, more than in- 
fants in their sleep. 

\o But Psyche tended Florian: 
with her oft 

AleHssa came; for Blanche had 
gone, but left 

Her child among us, willing she 
should keep 

Court-favor: here and there the 
small bright head, 

A light of healing, glanced about 
the couch. 

Or thro' the parted silks the ten- 
der face 

Peep'd. shining in upon the 
wounded man 

With blush and smile, a medicine 
in themselves 

To wile the length from languor- 
ous hours, and draw 

The sting from pain; nor seem'd 
it strange that soon 
50 He rose up whole, and those fair 
charities 

Join'd at her side; nor stranger 
seem'd that hearts 

So gentle, so employ'd, should 
close in love. 

Than when two dewdrops on the 
petal shake 

To the same sweet air, and trem- 
ble deeper down. 

And slip at once all-fragrant into 
one. 

Less prosperously the second 

suit obtain'd 
At first with Psyche. Not tho' 

Blanche had sworn 
That after that dark night among 

the fields 
She needs must wed him for her 

own good name; 



Not tho' he built upon the babe 60 

restored; 
Nor tho' she liked him, yielded 

she, but fear'd 
To incense the Head once more; 

till on a day 
When Cyril pleaded, Ida came 

behind 
Seen but of Psyche: on her foot 

she hung 
A moment, and she heard, at 

which her face 
A little flush'd, and she past on; 

but each 
Assumed from thence a half-con- 
sent involved 
In stillness, plighted troth, and 

were at peace. 

Nor only these: Love in the 
sacred halls 

Held carnival at will, and flying 70 
struck 

With showers of random sweet on 
maid and man. 

Nor did her father cease to press 
my claim, 

Nor did mine own now recon- 
ciled; nor yet 

Did those twin brothers, risen 
again and whole; 

Nor Arac, satiate with his victory. 

But I lay still, and with me oft 
she sat: 

Then came a change; for some- 
times I would catch 

Her hand in wild delirium, gripe 
it hard. 

And fling it like a viper ofif, and 
shriek, 

'You are not Ida;' clasp it once 80 
again. 

And- call her Ida, tho' I knew her 
not, 

2 Note that of lines 81 to 97, three only 
do not begin with and. 



84 



THE PRINCESS. 



And call her sweet, as if in irony, 
And call her hard and cold, which 

seem'd a truth; 
And still she fear'd that I should 

lose my mind. 
And often she believed that I 
should die: 
■ Till out of long frustration of her 
care, 
And pensive tendance in the all- 
weary noons, 
And watches in the dead, the 

dark, when clocks 
Throbb'd thunder thro' the palace 
floors, or call'd 
90 On fiying Time from all their sil- 
ver tongues — 
And out of memories of her kind- 
lier days, 
And sidelong glances at my fath- 
er's grief. 
And at the happy lovers heart in 

heart — 
And out of hauntings of my spok- 
en love, 
, And lonely listenings to my mut- 
ter'd dream, 
And often feeling of the helpless 

hands. 
And wordless broodings on the 

wasted cheek — 
From all a closer interest flour- 

ish'd up, 
Tenderness touch by touch, and 
last, to these, 
100 Love, like an Alpine harebell 
hung with tears 
By some cold morning glacier; 

frail at first 
And feeble, all unconscious of it- 
self. 
But such as gather'd color day by 
day. 

Last I woke sane, but well-nigh 
close to death 



For weakness: it was evening: 

silent light 
Slept on the painted walls, where- 
in were wrought 
Two grand designs; for on one 

side arose 
The women up in wild revolt, and 

storm'd 
At the Oppian^ law. Titanic 

shapes, they cramm'd 
The forum, and half-crush'd ik 

among the rest 
A dwarf-like Cato cower'd. On 

the other side 
Hortensia spoke against the tax; 

behind, 
A train of dames: by axe and 

eagle sat. 
With all their foreheads drawn in 

Roman scowls. 
And half the wolf's-milk curdled 

in their veins. 
The fierce triumvirs; and before 

them paused 
Hortensia, pleading: angry was 

her face. 

I saw the forms: I knew not 

where I was: 
They did but look like hollow 

shows; nor more 
Sweet Ida: palm to palm she sat: 12 

the dew 
Dwelt in her eyes, and softer all 

her shape 
And rounder seem'd: I moved; I 

sigh'd: a touch 
Came round my wrist, and tears 

upon my hand: 
Then all for languor and self-pity 

ran 

9 A law enacted at Rome on the 
approach of Hannibal, that no woman 
should wear gay colored dresses, nor 
more than a half ounce of gold, nor ride in 
a carriage in the city or within a mile of 
it ; afterward repealed, only upon the 
revolt of the women who harassed the 
magistrates. 



PART VII , 



85 



Mine down my face, and with 

what hfe I had. 
And Hke a flower that cannot all 

unfold. 
So drench'd it is with tempest, to 

the sun. 
Yet, as it may, turns toward him, 

I on her 
Fixt my faint eyes, and utter'd 

whisperingly: 

!o "If you be, what I think you, 
some sweet dream, 

1 would but ask you to fulfil your- 
self; 

But if you be that Ida whom I 
knew, 

I ask you nothing: only, if a 
dream, 

Sweet dream, be perfect. I shall 
die to-night. 

Stoop down and seem to kiss me 
ere I die.' 

I could no more, but lay like 

one in trance. 
That hears his burial talk'd of by 

his friends. 
And cannot speak, nor move, nor 

make one sign. 
But lies and dreads his doom. 

She turn'd; she paused; 
(o She stoop'd; and out of languor 

leapt a cry; 
Leapt fiery Passion from the 

brinks of death; 
And I believed that in the living 

world 
My spirit closed with Ida's at the 

lips; 
Till back I fell, and from mine 

arms she rose 
Glowing all over noble shame; 

and all 
Her falser self slipt from her like 

a robe. 



And left her woman, lovelier in 

her mood 
Than in her mould that other,* 

when she came 
From barren deeps to conquer all 

with love, 
And down the streaming crystal 150 

dropt; and she 
Far-fleeted by the purple island- 
sides, 
Naked, a double light in air and 

wave, 
To meet her Graces, where they 

deck'd her out 
For worship without end; nor 

end of mine. 
Stateliest, for thee! but mute she 

glided forth, 
Nor glanced behind her, and I 

sank and slept. 
Fill'd thro' and thro' with love, a 

happy sleep. 

Deep in the night I woke: she 

near me, held 
A volume of the Poets of her 

land: 
There to herself, all in low tones, 160 

she read: 



Now .sleeps the crimson petal, now 

the white ; 
Nor waves the cypress in the palace 

walk ; 
Nor winks the gold fin in the porphj^ry 

font : 
The fire-fly wakens : waken thou with 

me. 

Now droops the milk-white peacock 
like a ghost. 
And like a ghoi5t she glimmers on to 
me. 

Now lies the Earth all Danae^ to the 
stars, 
And all thy heart lies open unto me. 

Now slides the silent meteor on, 
and leaves 
A shining furrow, as thy thoughts in 170 
me. 

I Aphrodite rising from the sea. 
6 CI. Diet. 



86 



THE PRINCESS. 



Now folds the lily all her sweetness 
tip, 
And slips into the bosom of the lake ; 
So fold thyself, my dearest, thou, and 

slip. 
Into my bosom, and be lost in me. 

I heard her turn the page; she 
found a small 
Sweet Idyl, and once more, as 
low, she read: 

Come down, O maid from yonder 

mountain height : 
What pleasure lives in height (the 

shepherd sang), 
In height and cold, the splendor of the 

hills? 
180 But cease to move so near the Heavens, 

and cease 
To glide a sunbeam by the blasted pine. 
To sit a star upon the sparkling spire ; 
And come, for I,ove is of the valley, 

come. 
For L,ove is of the valley, come thou 

down 
And find him ; by the happy threshold, 

he. 
Or hand in hand, with Plenty in the 

maize. 
Or red with spirted purple of the vats. 
Or foxlike in the vine ; nor cares to 

walk 
With Death and Morning on the Silver 

Horns, 6 
190 Nor wilt thou snare him in the white 

ravine. 
Nor find him dropt upon the firths of 

ice. 
That huddling slant in furrow-cloven 

falls 
To roll the torrent out of dusky doors : 
But follow ; let the torrent dance thee 

down 
To find him in the valley ; let the wild 
l,ean-headed eagles yelp alone, and 

leave 
The monstrous ledges there to slope, 

and spill 
Their thousand wreaths of dangling 

water-smoke,' 
That like a broken purpose waste in air : 
200 So waste not thou ; but come ; for all 

the vales 
Await thee ; azure^ pillars of the hearth 
Arise to thee ; the children call, and I 

6 Relating to Swiss scenery with spe- 
cial reference to the Jungfrau. 

' Cf . The Lotos Eaters. 

8 Columns of smoke. 



Thy shepherd pipe, and sweet is every 

sound, 
Sweeter thy voice, but every sound is 

sweet ; 
Mj^riads of rivulets hurrying thro' the 

lawn. 
The moan of doves in immemorial 

elms. 
And murmuring of innumerable bees. 

So she low-toned; while with 

shut eyes I lay 
Listening, then look'd. Pale was 

the periect face; 
The .bosom with long sighs la- 21 

bor'd; and meek 
Seem'd the full lips, and mild the 

luminous eyes, 
And the voice trembled and the 

hand. She said 
Brokenly, that she knew it, she 

had fail'd 
In sweet humility; had fail'd in 

all; 
That all her labor was but as a 

block 
Left in the quarry; but she still 

were loth, 
She still were loth to yield herself 

to one 
That wholly scorn'd to help their 

equal rights 
Against the sons of men and bar- 
barous laws. 
She pray'd me not to judge their 2; 

cause from her 
That wrong'd it, sought far less 

for truth than power 
In knowledge: something wild 

within her breast, 
A greater than all knowledge, 

beat her down. 
And she had nursed me there 

from week to week: 
Much had she learnt in little time. 

In part 
It was ill counsel had misled the 

girl 
To vex true hearts: yet was she 

but a girl — 



PART VII. 



87 



'Ah fool, and made myself a queen 

of farce! 
When comes another such? 

never, I think, 
30 Till the sun drop, dead, from the 

signs.''' 

Her voice 
Choked, and her forehead sank 

upon her hands. 
And her great heart thro' all the 

faultful past 
Went sorrowing in a pause I 

dared not break; 
Till notice of a change in the dark 

world 
Was lispt about the acacias, and a 

bird. 
That early woke to feed her little 

ones, 
Sent from a dewy breast a cry for 

light: 
She moved, and at her feet the 

volume fell. 

'Blame not thyself too much,' 

I said, 'nor blame 
40 Too much the sons of men and 

barbarous laws; 
These were the rough ways of the 

world till now. 
Henceforth thou hast a helper, 

me, that know 
The woman's cause is man's; they 

rise or sink 
Together, dwarf'd or godlike, 

bond or free: 
For she that out of Lethe scales 

with man 
The shining steps of Nature, 

shares with man 
His nights, his days, moves with 

him to one goal, 
Stays all the fair youngio planet 

in her hands — 

5 \Vb. under Zodiac. 
'° The rising generation. 



If she be small, slight-natured, 
miserable, 

How shall men grow? but work 250 
no more alone! 

Our place is much: as far as in 
us lies 

We two will serve them both in 
aiding her — 

Will clear away the parasitic 
forms 

That seem to keep her up but 
drag her down — 

Will leave her space to burgeoni^ 
out of all 

Within her — let her make herself 
her own 

To give or keep, to live and learn 
and be 

All that not harms distinctive wo- 
manhood. 

For woman is not undevelopt 
man. 

But diverse: could we make her 260 
as the man. 

Sweet Love were slain: his dear- 
est bond is this, 

Not like to like, but like in dif- 
ference. 

Yet in the long years liker must 
they grow; 

The man be more of woman, she 
of man ; 

He gain in sweetness and in mor- 
al height, 

Nor lose the wrestling thews that 
throw the world: 

She mental breadth, nor fail in 
childward care. 

Nor lose the childlike in the 
larger mind; 

Till at the last she set herself to 
man, 

Like perfect music unto noble 270 
words; 

And so these twain, upon the 
skirts of Time, 

' ' \vb. to bud. 



88 



THE PRINCESS. 



Sit side by side, full-summ'd in 
all their powers. 

Dispensing harvest, sowing the 
to-be, 

Self-reverent each and reverenc- 
ing each, 

Distinct in individualities, 

But like each other even as those 
who love. 

Then comes the statelier Eden 
back to men; 

Then reign the world's great brid- 
als, chaste and calm; 

Then springs the crowning race of 
humankind. 
2S0 May these things be!' 

Sighing she spoke: 'I fear 

They will not.' 

'Dear, but let us type them now 

In our own lives, and this proud 
watchword rest 

Of equal; seeing either sex alone 

Is half itself, and in true marriage 
lies 

Nor equal, nor unequal: each ful- 
fils 

Defect in each, and always 
thought in thought. 

Purpose in purpose, will in will, 
they grow. 

The single pure and perfect ani- 
mal, 

The two-cell'd heart beating, with 
one full stroke, 
290 Life.' 

And again sighing she 
spoke: 'A dream 

That once was mine! what wo- 
man taught you this?' 

'Alone,' I said, 'from earlier 

than I know. 
Immersed in rich foreshadowings 

of the world, 
I loved the woman: he, that doth 

not, lives 



A drowning life, besotted in sweet 
self. 

Or pines in sad experience worse 
than death. 

Or keeps his wing'd affections 
dipt with crime: 

Yet was there one thro' whom I 
loved her, one 

Not learned, save in gracious 
household ways. 

Not perfect, nay, but full of ten- 30° 
der wants. 

No angel, but a dearer being, all 
dipt 

In angel instincts, breathing Para- 
dise, 

Interpreter between the Gods and 
men. 

Who look'd all native to her 
place, and yet 

On tiptoe seem'd to touch upon a 
sphere 

Too gross to tread, and all male 
minds perforce 

Sway'd to her from their orbits 
as they moved. 

And girdled her with musics- 
Happy he 

With such a mother! faith in wo- 
mankind 

Beats with his blood, and trust in 310 
all things high 

Comes easy to him, and tho' he 
trip and fall 

He shall not blind his soul with 
clay.' 

•But I,' 

Said Ida, tremulously, 'so all un- 
like— 

It seems you love to cheat your- 
self with words: 

This mother is your model. I 

have heard , 

Of your strange doubts: they well 
might be; I seem 

1 2 The music of the Spheres. Cf. Shakes- 
peare, Mcht. of V. V. I, 60. 



PART VII. 



A mockery to my own self. Nev- 
er, Prince; 
You cannot love me.' 

'Nay. but thee,' I said, 
'From yearlong poring on thy 

pictured eyes, 
Ere seen I loved, and loved thee 

seen, and saw 
Thee woman, thro' the crust of 

iron moods 
That mask'd thee from men's rev- 
erence up, and forced 
Sweet love on pranks of saucy 

boyhood: now. 
Given back to life, to life indeed, 

thro' thee. 
Indeed I love: the new day 

comes, the light 
Dearer for night, as dearer thou 

for faults 
Lived over: lift thine eyes; my 

doubts are dead. 
My haunting sense of hollow 

shows: the change. 
This truthful change in thee has 

kill'd it. Dear, 
Look up, and let thy nature strike 

on mine, 
Like yonder morning on the blind 

half-world; 



Approach and fear not; breathe 

upon my brows; 
In that fine air I tremble, all the 

past 
Melts mist-like into this bright 

hour, and this 
Is morn ^3 j-q more, and all the 

rich to-come 
Reels, as the golden Autumn 

woodland reels 
Athwart the smoke of burning 

weeds. Forgive me, 
I waste my heart in signs: let be. 

My bride. 
My wife, my life! O we will walk 

this world, 
Yoked in all exercise of noble 340 

end. 
And so thro' those dark gates 

across the wild 
That no man knows. Indeed I 

love thee: come. 
Yield thyself up: my hopes and 

thine are one: 
Accomplish thou my manhood 

and thyself; 
Lay thy sweet hands in mine and 

trust to me.' 

'3 Refers to the seeming undulation of 
the landscape as clouds of smoke and 
heated air pass over it.' 




CONCLUSION 



SO closed our tale, of which I 
give you all 
The random scheme as wildly as 

it rose. 
The words are mostly mine; for 

when we ceased 
There came a minute's pause, and 

Walter said, 
'I wish she had not yielded!' then 

to me, 
'What if you drest it up poetic- 
ally!' 
So pray'd the men, the women; I 

gave assent: 
Yet how to bind the scatter'd 

scheme of seven 
Together in one sheaf? What 

style could suit? 
10 The men required that I should 

give throughout 
The sort of mock-heroic gigan- 

tesque.i 
With which we banter'd little 

Lilia first; 
The women — and perhaps they 

felt their power, 
For something in the ballads 

which they sang. 
Or in their silent influence as they 

sat, 
Had ever seem'd to wrestle with 

burlesque. 
And drove us, last, to quite a sol- 
emn close — 
They hated banter, wish'd for 

something real, 
A gallant fight, a noble princess — 

why 
' wb 



Not make her true-heroic — true- 20 
sublime? 

Or all, they said, as earnest as the 
close? 

Which yet with such a framework 
scarce could be. 

Then rose a little feud betwixt 
the two, 

Betwixt the mockers and the real- 
ists; 

And I, betwixt them both, to 
please them both, 

And yet to give the story as it 
rose, 

I rnoved as in a strange diagonal, 

And maybe neither pleased my- 
self nor them. 

But Lilia pleased me, for she took 

no part 
In our dispute: the sequel of the 3° 

tale 
Had touch'd her; and she sat, she 

pluck'd the grass, 
She flung it from her, thinking: 

last, she fixt 
A showery glance upon her aunt, , 

and said, 
'You — tell us what we are' — who 

might have told, 
For she was cramm'd with the- 
ories out of books. 
But that there rose a shout: the 

gates were closed i. 

At sunset, and the crowd were 

swarming now, 
To take their leave, about the 

garden rails. 



CONCLUSION. 



91 



So I and some went out to 

these: we climb'd 
40 The slope to Vivian-place, and 

turning saw 
The happy valleys, half in light, 

and half 
Far-shadowing from the west, a 

land of peace; 
Gray halls alone among their 

massive groves; 
Trim hamlets; here and there a 

rustic tower 
Half-lost in belts of hop and 

breadths of wheat; 
The shimmering glimpses of a 

stream; the seas; 
A red sail, or a white; and far 

beyond, 
Imagined more than seen, the 

skirts of France. 

"Look there, a garden!' said my 

college friend, 
50 The Tory- member's elder son, 

'and there! 
God bless the narrow sea which 

keeps her ofif, 
And keeps our Britain, whole 

within herself, 
A nation yet, the rulers and the 

ruled — 
Some sense of duty, something of 

a faith, 
Some reverence for the laws our- 
selves have made. 
Some patient force to change 

them when we will. 
Some civic manhood firm against 

the crowd — 
But yonder,-"* whifif! there comes 

a sudden heat. 
The gravest citizen seems to lose 

his head, 

- A designation of one of the two great 
political parties in England, now known 
as the Conservatives. 

3 France. 



The king is scared, the soldier 60 

will not fight. 
The little boys begin to shoot 

and stab, 
A kingdom topples over with a 

shriek 
Like an old woman, and down 

rolls the world 
In mock heroics stranger than 

our own; 
Revolts, republics, revolutions, 

inost 
No graver than a schoolboys' 

barring out; 
Too comic for the solemn things 

they are, 
Too solemn for the comic touches 

in them. 
Like our wild Princess with as 

wise a dream 
As some of theirs — God bless the 7° 

narrow seas!^ 
I wish they were a whole At- 
lantic broad.' 

'Have patience,' I replied, 'our- 
selves are full 

Of social wrong; and maybe wild- 
est dreams 

Are but the needful preludes of 
the truth: 

For me, the genial day, the happy 
crowd. 

The sport half-science, fill me 
with a faith. 

This fine^ old world of ours is 
but a child 

Yet in the go-cart. Patience! 
Give it time 

To learn its limbs: there is a 
hand that guides.' 

In such discourse we gain'd the 80 
garden rails, 

"The straits of Dover. 

5 Cf. the Poet's prophecv with the lines 
48-52, part VI. 



92 



THE PRINCESS. 



And there we saw Sir Walter 
where he stood. 

Before a tower of crimson holly- 
oaks. 

Among six boys, head under 
head, and look'd 

No little lily-handed baronet he, 

A great broad-shoulder'd genial 
Englishman, 

A lord of fat prize-oxen and of 
sheep, 

A raiser of huge melons and of 
pine,^ 

A patron of some thirty chari- 
ties, 

A pamphleteer on guano and on 
grain, 
90 A quarter-sessions chairman, ab- 
ler none; 

Fair-hair'd and redder than a 
windy morn; 

Now shaking hands with him, 
now him, of those 

That stood the nearest — now ad- 
dress'd to speech — 

Who spoke few words and pithy, 
such as closed 

Welcome, farewell, and welcome 
for the year 

To follow: a shout rose again, 
and made 

The long line of the approaching 
rookery" swerve 

From the elms, and shook the 
branches^ of the deer 

From slope to slope thro' distant 
ferns, and rang 

6 Pineapples. 

7 Refering to a flight of rooks, rather 
than to the rookery home. 



Beyond the bourn of sunset; O, a 100 

shout 
More joyful than the city-roar 

that hails 
Premier or king! Why should 

not these great Sirs 
Give up their parks some dozen 

times a year 
To let the people breathe? So 

thrice they cried, 
I likewise, and in groups they 

stream'd away. 

But we went back to the Ab- 
bey, and sat on. 
So much the gathering darkness 

charm'd: we .sat 
But spoke not, rapt in nameless 

reverie. 
Perchance upon the future man : 

the walls 
Blacken'd about tis, bats wheel'd, no 

and owls whoop'd. 
And gradually the powers of the 

night, 
That range above the region of 

the wind, 
Deepening the courts of twilight 

broke them up 
Thro' all the silent spaces of the 

worlds. 
Beyond all thought into the 

Heaven of Heavens. 

Last little Lilia, rising quietly. 
Disrobed the glimmering statue 

of Sir Ralph 
From those rich'' silk^, and home 

well-pleased we went. 

9Cf. Prol. line 103. 



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